A Colony Sprung from Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744-1794

8. A Bad Character of Quarrelling

194 a colony sprung from hell For the population of the western Pennsylvania frontier, the American Revolution was an Indian war. Although the Continental Congress established a western military department at Pittsburgh and dispatched military commanders and Indian agents to exercise authority at Fort Pitt, defense of the region remained primarily a matter of local initiative. This arose in part from Congress’s inability, or unwillingness, to commit adequate resources for defense during the early years of the war. Congress considered the region around Pittsburgh to be peripheral to the main fight shaping up along the Atlantic seaboard and would not divert manpower and materials from the East to defend the frontier.Instead,Congress envisioned a scenario where the region’s inhabitants mobilized for their own defense, guided by the Continental Army commander at Pittsburgh. To some degree this strategy succeeded, as local militias organized and the inhabitants girded themselves for war. But managing the militia, and the local population in general, proved problematic. Civil authority around Pittsburgh remained divided and competitive during the war, making it very difficult for Continental Army officers to coordinate defense efforts.Local militias leaders often resisted Continental efforts to coordinate military affairs, which would have required the locals to recognize the army’s authority and accept limitations on their own autonomy. Indian diplomacy provided another source of contention, as Continental Indian agents struggled to maintain Indian neutrality against British intrigues and an antagonistic settler population that expected, and even desired, a war against the Indians. Conditioned by a growing distrust of distant authorities, the local population often viewed Congress and its representatives at Pittsburgh as competitors for power,· 194 · Eight A Bad Character of Quarrelling a bad character of quarrelling 195 even enemies, who sacrificed the security of the settlements in favor of national objectives in the East. As army commanders in Pittsburgh learned, the frontier population was willing to fight—but only on its own terms and only in a capacity that most suited its own interests. War came to the western Pennsylvania frontier as part of evolving British strategies for subduing the rebellious American colonies. As did the Continental Congress, British strategists considered the frontier a region of secondary importance during the war. They too decided that military resources would be better allocated in the East, and few British regular soldiers were sent west of the Appalachian Mountains. However, British generals perhaps understood their limitations better than the Americans did during the early phases of the war. Lacking sufficient manpower to wage a sustained counter­ insurgency war, the British needed to minimize the Americans’ numerical advantages by diverting manpower away from the campaigns in East. Opening a second front along the frontier offered that possibility, although it entailed risks. British commanders understood that military offensives in that theater would require the employment of irregular forces—Indians and loyalist militias—that could potentially turn frontier inhabitants against the Crown and swell Patriot ranks.Accordingly,for the first two years of the war the British limited their recruitment of Indians and marginalized the frontier in their military planning. That changed in 1777, thanks in part to the development of a military plan that the British government believed would end the war. After the successful campaigns on 1776, in which British armies captured New York City and repulsed an American invasion of Canada, the Crown planned for an offensive along the Hudson River corridor in New York. British strategy called for the army in Canada to move south into upper New York,while the army occupying New York City advanced up the Hudson. The two armies were to rendezvous at Albany, theoretically severing the rebellious colonies and allowing the British to operate at their leisure against George Washington ’s ragged forces in eastern Pennsylvania or to invade and reduce the New England colonies,long considered the seedbed of the revolution.To support the offensive along the Hudson River, the British government decided to open a second front in the west. Oversight of the war in the middle frontier region was assigned to Henry Hamilton, lieutenant governor and superintendent of Indian affairs at Detroit.Hamilton had few British regulars at his disposal, so the recruitment of Indians and Loyalists would be critical to his ability to wage war around Pittsburgh.1 In June 1777 Hamilton held a council of war at Detroit. Indians from the 196 a colony sprung from hell Great Lakes and...