Invasion and Insurrection: Security, Defense, and War in the Delaware Valley 1621-1815 (review)

When the British fleet that had bombarded Lewes, Delaware, and blockaded Delaware Bay left American waters near the end of the War of 1812, it marked the last time that the Delaware River Valley endured invasion or insurrection. But as Jeffrey Dorwart amply demonstrates in his latest book, Invasion and Insurrection: Security, Defense and War in the Delaware Valley, 1621-1815, defense and security were constant themes in the region's history for 200 years before that. In Invasion and Insurrection, Dorwart offers the first engrossing narrative of the region's post Columbian military history from the first violent interactions between European settlers and Native Americans to the establishment of security in the region following the War of 1812. In so doing, he advances (and demonstrates) that the quest for security was a defining theme in the region for two centuries.

There are many things to praise in Invasion and Insurrection. Chief among them perhaps is the author's drive to create an unglamorized regional military history of the communities along the South River (the common European name for the Delaware River until the early 1700s). Dorwart's narrative of the region in the seventeenth century, for example, is a balanced depiction of five distinct communities: 1. Swede/Finn immigrants setting near the mouth of Delaware River, 2. Dutch émigrés from the North (Hudson) River settling upriver, 3. Puritan New Englanders establishing themselves in southern New Jersey, 4. Iroquoian Minques on the western banks of the river; and Algonquin Lenape (themselves further subdivided into anti-European and cooperative communities) to the east. As Dorwart makes clear, the 1600s saw a series of destructive but inconclusive attacks and intrigues involving these five communities. It was not until the end of the century that the wave of English settlers(ironically, many of whom were pacifist Quakers) made it clear of who would dominate the region.

However, the establishment of Anglo-American dominance in the region did not end the quest for defense and security. Dorwart successfully demonstrates that the region remained fundamentally insecure through the 1700s. External threats – French and Spanish privateers to the east and Native American raiders from the west—imperiled maritime traders and frontier farmers. These external threats were grave but intermittent, while internal threats remained constant. Dorwart reminds us that the domestic history of the Delaware River region in the 1700s was tumultuous and sometimes ugly—including racially-motivated purges of peaceful Native American communities and other violent eruptions (i.e., the Black Camp Insurrection in Delaware, and the Paxton, Pennamite, Whiskey, and Fries insurrections in Pennsylvania). The region also endured military conquest by the British and great destruction during the American Revolution, the region's total war.

While there is indeed much to praise in this book, Dorwart's narrative and use of source materials is noticeably tilted toward military and political leaders at the expense of those on the middle and lower rungs of the societal ladder. The author makes good use of government papers but does not effectively mine traveler's accounts, church records, court records or other documents that shed light on all rural and poorer people. Further, in his chapters on the American Revolution, he draws an uneven line between Loyalist partisans such as James Moody and Colonel Tye who are included in the narrative, and prolific Loyalist bandits such as the Doane brothers and John Bacon who are not. Finally, there is not a single woman or child quoted in the book even though war and insecurity affects the entire family (i.e., razed crops and homesteads, extra work due to the absence of men called into military service, increased crime amidst chaos). However, Invasion and Insurrection certainly is not the first military history with a tilt toward powerful men at the expense of others...