Virginia's Western War, 1775-1786 (review)

Virginia's Western War, written by architect Neal O. Hammon and Kentucky's former Poet Laureate and Professor of English at Kentucky State University, Richard Taylor, purports to tell the "little known" story of Virginia's role in settling and defending the Kentucky region, as well as, it seems, in securing all of the Northwest territories for the new United States. Covering the period from Dunmore's War to Virginia's last campaigns in the west in 1784-86, the authors tell the story of the early history of the Kentucky region, and particularly Virginia's political and social role in providing the initiative for the conquest and settlement of the area. Trying to balance the military dimensions of the westward movement of Virginians with the story of the "hardships of the struggling civilian population," the authors also appear to aim their work at both a general and an academic audience.

Unfortunately for the professional historian, the story told here adds little more than further details to the broader outlines of a history that has been told before. Indeed, the scholarship on what the authors call this forgotten or neglected "aspect of the country's early history" has actually grown enormously in the last twenty years. The authors have simply refused to acknowledge or use this literature. Few academic histories appear in the bibliography; less seem to have been used throughout the text. Indeed, the book is poorly referenced throughout as footnotes are used sparingly and with no logical regularity. Far too many times do the authors refer to other historians saying one thing or another, without actually attributing such statements to anyone in particular.

A more general audience is even less well served, because the authors' failure to incorporate or absorb much of the literature of the last twenty years leads to a troubling interpretive approach. Ignored are recent efforts by scholars to take a "middle ground" approach in exploring Native American-European relations. Instead, the authors employ an older, anachronistic "frontier" approach to the history of Kentucky. This is a book about how white men moved into Kentucky and explored, settled, and fought for the region, and a story that was written in the face of a recent outpouring of scholarship that has enriched our understanding of Native American politics, war, and diplomacy in this area for this period. Here, a general and elusive "Indian" presence is only explored when they get in the way of these protagonists, and seldom is any Native American perspective examined in any great depth. Moreover, language has also changed over the last twenty years. Yet it is not merely politically correct to criticize the authors for using terms like "squaws" and "savages" when referring to Native Americans, or "Negro slaves" when referring to enslaved African Americans. The unattributed and injudicious illustrations, such as "Frontiersman shoots Indian" (p. 131), do little to help the situation. The language and tone of this book is often offensive; at times it borders on being racist.

Finally, there are also significant problems with the larger story being told. Not only does the minutiae presented skew the focus toward more prosperous or literate settlers, but it also obscures the larger narrative story. While the maps included are plentiful, they are seldom helpful. Neither the maps nor text, for example, give us any meaningful quantitative sense of the numbers involved, their movements, and the geographic spread of migrants to the Kentucky region. Though by the end of the book it is clear that Virginia and Virginians played an important role in the Kentucky region, the size and scope of that role is less clear, as is its meaning for all participants concerned.