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  • Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence Along Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Frontier
  • Patrick Spero (bio)
Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence along Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Frontier. By Paul B. Moyer. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. Pp. 216. Cloth, $39.95.)

In Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence along Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Frontier, Paul B. Moyer explores the history of Connecticut [End Page 369] land claimants in what became northeastern Pennsylvania. Beginning in the 1750s, when Connecticut colonists first settled the Wyoming Valley, as the Upper Susquehanna River was known, alongside —and often at odds with—the native peoples inhabiting the region, Moyer follows that history into the 1820s, long after Indians had been pushed westward and the region had come to be inhabited by tribes calling themselves Democratic-Republicans and Federalists. Taking a long view of the revolutionary era, Moyer finds a region wracked by violence, hatred, and war, a region that was “unique . . . in that it experienced just about every variety of violence the revolutionary frontier had to offer: violence between whites and Indians, between white settlers, and between ordinary back-country inhabitants and powerful gentlemen” (6). Moyer frames his analysis around the concept of independence, and convincingly shows that for white settlers in an agrarian society, achieving landed independence was essential to their identity and for understanding their actions during this long struggle for secure land rights.

Moyer’s organization is chronological. At the same time, each chapter tends to focus on a particular theme to highlight the concept of independence at the heart of the book. Moyer begins by exploring the nature and legacy of native–white interactions, with a particular emphasis on violence. Native peoples, particularly the Delawares under the leadership of Teedyuscung, tried to stop white settlers in the region through both peaceful negotiation and resistance, fighting “their own struggle for independence” (19). Moyer makes a provocative and compelling argument that the racialized violence between natives and whites that defined the Wyoming Valley during the 1760s shaped the future of white-on-white violence in the region. “[T]hat a legacy of interracial contention added to the intensity of the Wyoming controversy,” he concludes, “can be deduced from the fact that other regions which experienced conflicts over land and jurisdiction . . . saw much lower levels of bloodshed and death” (24).

Moyer focuses the rest of his work on the clash between Connecticut claimants, dubbed “Wild Yankees,” and Pennsylvanians, known as “Pennamites.” The nature of this clash changed significantly over time. During the American Revolution, Connecticut settlers used the political division of the empire to their advantage, labeling Pennsylvanians Loyalists and entering into a series of bloody battles with them (39). Through [End Page 370] these and other tactics, Connecticut essentially controlled the region throughout the 1770s, establishing towns and a county. But this was a short-lived victory. Although Connecticut settlers were devout patriots, the nation they fought for granted the contested land to the state of Pennsylvania in the Trenton Decree of 1782.

The political change wrought by the revolutionary settlement fundamentally altered the conflict, shifting it “from a relatively clear cut jurisdictional fight between colonies and states to a far more complex battle for political legitimacy” (42). Now Pennsylvania had to firmly establish its authority and win settler allegiance, a task Moyer demonstrates is much harder than winning legal arguments. Moyer finds that at every turn, individuals—whether Pennamite or Wild Yankee—worked to undercut Pennsylvania’s state authority in an attempt to secure land and power through the assertion of local autonomy throughout the 1780s and 1790s.

The emphasis on acquiring landed independence shaped the experience of Connecticut settlers from the colony’s first venture into the area through the period of the early republic. Moyer links Connecticut’s westward expansion to New England cultural traditions emphasizing land ownership as essential to individual autonomy, and he shows that the sustained foray into Pennsylvania was tied to land shortages in New England. After the Revolution, Connecticut no longer asserted its authority, but the Connecticut-based Susquehanna Land Company continued to assert its rights to the land and encouraged continued immigration in the early republic. To entice settlers, the company offered 300-acre...

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