Re-Walking the Purchase: Edgar Huntly, David Hume, and the Origins of Ownership

In April 1799, four months before the first volume of Edgar Huntly was published in Philadelphia, a short preview of the novel appeared in the New York periodical The Monthly Magazine and American Review. This "Fragment," as it was called, consisted of roughly four chapters taken from the middle of the finished book. In order to introduce the fragment, the editor of the magazine saw fit to include a brief two-paragraph letter, ostensibly written by Edgar Huntly himself:

Mr. Editor

The following narrative is extracted from the memoirs of a young man who resided some years since on the upper branches of the Delaware. These memoirs will shortly be published; but, meanwhile, the incidents here related are of such a kind as may interest and amuse some of your readers. Similar events have frequently happened on the Indian borders; but, perhaps, they never were before described with equal minuteness.

As to the truth of these incidents, men acquainted with the perils of an Indian war must be allowed to judge. Those who have ranged along the foot of the Blue-ridge, from Wind-gap to the Water-gap, will see the exactness of the local descriptions. It may also be mentioned that "Old Deb" is a portrait faithfully drawn from nature. ¹

The letter is signed "E. H." but it is the handiwork of Charles Brockden Brown, author of the novel and editor of the magazine. As such, the piece initially seems to function as little more than a fairly standard bit of self-promotion. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals a conspicuous preoccupation with geography, both physical and political. The narrative, we learn, will take place "on the upper branches of the Delaware," more specifically, in the area between the Wind-Gap and the Water-Gap on the eastern side of the Blue Mountains. The events of the narrative will be those "frequently" associated with "Indian borders." And the "perils of an Indian war," it seems, will be closely linked to boundary issues and to local topography. Nor will these topics be engaged in abstract terms. Brown is careful to emphasize the "minuteness" and "exactness" of his descriptions. In doing so, he implies that the novel will be best understood by placing it in a very particular geographical and historical context. It is not simply "the frontier" that interests Brown, but the zone of contact between whites and Indians in eastern Pennsylvania, between the Delaware River and the Blue Mountains. ²

This region is particularly significant to a novel about "Indian borders" because it comprises the heart of the infamous Walking Purchase of 1737. One of the most flagrant abuses of native American property rights in American history, the Purchase involved the defrauding and dispossession of the Delaware tribe at the hands of John and Thomas Penn (sons of William). Having produced an old Indian land deed of decidedly dubious authenticity, the two brothers demanded to take possession of their "ancient" claim. The Delaware were railroaded into ratifying the deed, which asserted that the amount of property in question would be determined by the distance a man could walk in a day and a half from a particular starting place. When it came time to actually walk the walk, the Indians were outraged to find that the Penn brothers had premarked the trail and that they had hired three trained athletes to do the walking. Nevertheless, the walk took place, a very liberal interpretation of the boundaries was made, and the Delaware were summarily dispossessed of 750,000 acres. Crucially, the path that the walkers followed crossed the Blue Mountains precisely in the area laid out by Brown's two-paragraph preface. ³

A number of critics have identified the Purchase as an important historical backdrop to Edgar Huntly's narrative of Indian dispossession and frontier revenge. Sydney Krause, for example, notes that Brown's novel is set "right in the heart of the Walking Purchase," a fact that helps establish "ironic parallels" between the book and various historical "pseudo treaties" that were ratified with the Delaware ("Penn's Elm" 469...