1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781361103321

Autore

Moyer Paul Benjamin <1970->

Titolo

Wild Yankees [[electronic resource] ] : the struggle for independence along Pennsylvania's revolutionary frontier / / Paul B. Moyer

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2007

ISBN

0-8014-6172-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (232 p.)

Disciplina

974.8/01

Soggetti

Susquehanna Claim, 1753-1808

Frontier and pioneer life - Pennsylvania - Wyoming Valley

Indians of North America - Pennsylvania - Wyoming Valley - History

Wyoming Valley (Pa.) History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--College of William and Mary, 1999.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-209) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : a farmer's revolution -- "Among quarrelsome Yankees, insidious Indians, and lonely wilds" : natives, colonists, and the Wyoming controversy -- "A great many wrangling disputes" : authority, allegiance, property, and the frontier war for independence -- "A dangerous combination of villains" : the social context of agrarian resistance -- "All the difficulties of forming a new settlement" : frontier migration, land speculation, and settler insurgency -- "A perfect union with the people" : cultures of resistance along the revolutionary frontier -- "Poor and ignorant but industrious settlers" : frontier development and the path to accommodation -- "Artful deceivers" : Yankee notables and the resolution of the Wyoming controversy -- Epilogue : closing the revolutionary frontier.

Sommario/riassunto

Northeast Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley was truly a dark and bloody ground, the site of murders, massacres, and pitched battles. The valley's turbulent history was the product of a bitter contest over property and power known as the Wyoming controversy. This dispute, which raged between the mid-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, intersected with conflicts between whites and native peoples over land, a jurisdictional contest between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, violent contention over property among settlers and land



speculators, and the social tumult of the American Revolution. In its later stages, the controversy pitted Pennsylvania and its settlers and speculators against "Wild Yankees"-frontier insurgents from New England who contested the state's authority and soil rights.In Wild Yankees, Paul B. Moyer argues that a struggle for personal independence waged by thousands of ordinary settlers lay at the root of conflict in northeast Pennsylvania and across the revolutionary-era frontier. The concept and pursuit of independence was not limited to actual war or high politics; it also resonated with ordinary people, such as the Wild Yankees, who pursued their own struggles for autonomy. This battle for independence drew settlers into contention with native peoples, wealthy speculators, governments, and each other over land, the shape of America's postindependence social order, and the meaning of the Revolution. With vivid descriptions of the various levels of this conflict, Moyer shows that the Wyoming controversy illuminates settlement, the daily lives of settlers, and agrarian unrest along the early American frontier.