Frontier in American History — III - The Old West - Part 1
THE OLD WEST[67:1]
It is not the oldest West with which this chapter deals.
The oldest West was the Atlantic coast.
Roughly speaking, it took a century of Indian fighting and forest felling for the colonial settlements to expand into the interior to a distance of about a hundred miles from the coast.
Indeed, some stretches were hardly touched in that period.
This conquest of the nearest wilderness in the course of the seventeenth century and in the early years of the eighteenth, gave control of the maritime section of the nation and made way for the new movement of westward expansion which I propose to discuss.
In his "Winning of the West," Roosevelt dealt chiefly with the region beyond the Alleghanies, and with the period of the later eighteenth century, although he prefaced his account with an excellent chapter describing the backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies and their social conditions from 1769 to 1774. It is important to notice, however, that he is concerned with a backwoods society already formed; that he ignores the New England frontier and its part in the winning of the West, and does not recognize that there was a West to be won between New England and the Great Lakes.
In short, he is interested in the winning of the West beyond the Alleghanies by the southern half of the frontier folk.
There is, then, a western area intermediate between the coastal colonial settlements of the seventeenth century and the trans-Alleghany settlements of the latter portion of the eighteenth century.
This section I propose to isolate and discuss under the name of the Old West, and in the period from about 1676 to 1763. It includes the back country of New England, the Mohawk Valley, the Great Valley of Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Piedmont--that is, the interior or upland portion of the South, lying between the Alleghanies and the head of navigation of the Atlantic rivers marked by the "fall line."
[68:1] In this region, and in these years, are to be found the beginnings of much that is characteristic in Western society, for the Atlantic coast was in such close touch with Europe that its frontier experience was soon counteracted, and it developed along other lines.
It is unfortunate that the colonial back country appealed so long to historians solely in connection with the colonial wars, for the development of its society, its institutions and mental attitude all need study.
Its history has been dealt with in separate fragments, by states, or towns, or in discussions of special phases, such as German and Scotch-Irish immigration.
The Old West as a whole can be appreciated only by obliterating the state boundaries which conceal its unity, by correlating the special and fragmentary studies, and by filling the gaps in the material for understanding the formation of its society.
The present paper is rather a reconnaissance than a conquest of the field, a program for study of the Old West rather than an exposition of it.
The end of the period proposed may be placed about 1763, and the beginning between 1676 and 1700. The termination of the period is marked by the Peace of Paris in 1763, and the royal proclamation of that year forbidding settlement beyond the Alleghanies.
By this time the settlement of the Old West was fairly accomplished, and new advances were soon made into the "Western Waters" beyond the mountains and into the interior of Vermont and New Hampshire.
The isolation of the transmontane settlements, and the special conditions and doctrines of the Revolutionary era during which they were formed, make a natural distinction between the period of which I am to speak and the later extension of the West.
The beginning of the period is necessarily an indeterminate date, owing to the different times of colonizing the coastal areas which served as bases of operations in the westward advance.
The most active movements into the Old West occurred after 1730. But in 1676 New England, having closed the exhausting struggle with the Indians, known as King Philip's War, could regard her established settlements as secure, and go on to complete her possession of the interior.
This she did in the midst of conflicts with the exterior Indian tribes which invaded her frontiers from New York and Canada during the French and Indian wars from 1690 to 1760, and under frontier conditions different from the conditions of the earlier Puritan colonization.
In 1676, Virginia was passing through Indian fighting--keenest along the fall line, where the frontier lay--and also experiencing a social revolt which resulted in the defeat of the democratic forces that sought to stay the progress of aristocratic control in the colony.
[70:1] The date marks the end of the period when the Virginia tidewater could itself be regarded as a frontier region, and consequently the beginning of a more special interest in the interior.
Let us first examine the northern part of the movement into the back country.
The expansion of New England into the vacant spaces of its own section, in the period we have chosen for discussion, resulted in the formation of an interior society which contrasted in many ways with that of the coast, and which has a special significance in Western history, in that it was this interior New England people who settled the Greater New England in central and western New York, the Wyoming Valley, the Connecticut Reserve of Ohio, and much of the prairie areas of the Old Northwest.
It is important to realize that the Old West included interior New England.
The situation in New England at the close of the seventeenth century is indicated by the Massachusetts act of 1694 enumerating eleven towns, then on the frontier and exposed to raids, none of which might be voluntarily deserted without leave of the governor and council, on penalty of loss of their freeholds by the landowners, or fine of other inhabitants.
[70:2] Thus these frontier settlers were made substantially garrisons, or "mark colonies."
Crowded into the palisades of the town, and obliged in spite of their poverty to bear the brunt of Indian attack, their hardships are illustrated in the manly but pathetic letters of Deerfield's minister, Mr. Williams,[70:3] in 1704. Parkman succinctly describes the general conditions in these words:[70:4] The exposed frontier of New England was between two and three hundred miles long, and consisted of farms and hamlets loosely scattered through an almost impervious forest.
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Even in so-called villages the houses were far apart, because, except on the seashore, the people lived by farming.
Such as were able to do so fenced their dwellings with palisades, or built them of solid timber, with loopholes, a projecting upper story like a block house, and sometimes a flanker at one or more of the corners.
In the more considerable settlements the largest of these fortified houses was occupied in time of danger by armed men and served as a place of refuge for the neighbors.
Into these places, in days of alarm, were crowded the outlying settlers, just as was the case in later times in the Kentucky "stations."
In spite of such frontier conditions, the outlying towns continued to multiply.
Between 1720 and the middle of the century, settlement crept up the Housatonic and its lateral valley into the Berkshires.
About 1720 Litchfield was established; in 1725, Sheffield; in 1730, Great Barrington; and in 1735 a road was cut and towns soon established between Westfield and these Housatonic settlements, thus uniting them with the older extensions along the Connecticut and its tributaries.
In this period, scattered and sometimes unwelcome Scotch-Irish settlements were established, such as that at Londonderry, New Hampshire, and in the Berkshires, as well as in the region won in King Philip's War from the Nipmucks, whither there came also Huguenots.
[72:1] In King George's War, the Connecticut River settlers found their frontier protection in such rude stockades as those at the sites of Keene, of Charlestown, New Hampshire (Number Four), Fort Shirley at the head of Deerfield River (Heath), and Fort Pelham (Rowe); while Fort Massachusetts (Adams) guarded the Hoosac gateway to the Hoosatonic Valley.
These frontier garrisons and the self-defense of the backwoodsmen of New England are well portrayed in the pages of Parkman.
[72:2] At the close of the war, settlement again expanded into the Berkshires, where Lennox, West Hoosac (Williamstown), and Pittsfield were established in the middle of the century.
Checked by the fighting in the last French and Indian War, the frontier went forward after the Peace of Paris (1763) at an exceptional rate, especially into Vermont and interior New Hampshire.
An anonymous writer gives a contemporary view of the situation on the eve of the Revolution:[72:3] The richest parts remaining to be granted are on the northern branches of the Connecticut river, towards Crown Point where are great districts of fertile soil still unsettled.
The North part of New Hampshire, the province of Maine, and the territory of Sagadahock have but few settlements in them compared with the tracts yet unsettled.
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I should further observe that these tracts have since the peace [_i.
e. _, 1763], been settling pretty fast: farms on the river Connecticut are every day extending beyond the old fort Dummer, for near thirty miles; and will in a few years reach to Kohasser which is nearly two hundred miles; not that such an extent will be one-tenth settled, but the new-comers do not fix near their neighbors, and go on regularly, but take spots that please them best, though twenty or thirty miles beyond any others.
This to people of a sociable disposition in Europe would appear very strange, but the Americans do not regard the near neighborhood of other farmers; twenty or thirty miles by water they esteem no distance in matters of this sort; besides in a country that promises well the intermediate space is not long in filling up.
Between Connecticut river and Lake Champlain upon Otter Creek, and all along Lake Sacrament [George] and the rivers that fall into it, and the whole length of Wood Creek, are numerous settlements made since the peace.
[73:1] For nearly a hundred years, therefore, New England communities had been pushed out to new frontiers in the intervals between the almost continuous wars with the French and Indians.
Probably the most distinctive feature in this frontier was the importance of the community type of settlement; in other words, of the towns, with their Puritan ideals in education, morals, and religion.
This has always been a matter of pride to the statesmen and annalists of New England, as is illustrated by these words of Holland in his "Western Massachusetts," commenting on the settlement of the Connecticut Valley in villages, whereby in his judgment morality, education, and urbanity were preserved: The influence of this policy can only be fully appreciated when standing by the side of the solitary settler's hut in the West, where even an Eastern man has degenerated to a boor in manners, where his children have grown up uneducated, and where the Sabbath has become an unknown day, and religion and its obligations have ceased to exercise control upon the heart and life.
Whatever may be the real value of the community type of settlement, its establishment in New England was intimately connected both with the Congregational religious organization and with the land system of the colonies of that section, under which the colonial governments made grants--not in tracts to individuals, but in townships to groups of proprietors who in turn assigned lands to the inhabitants without cost.
The typical form of establishing a town was as follows: On application of an approved body of men, desiring to establish a new settlement, the colonial General Court would appoint a committee to view the desired land and report on its fitness; an order for the grant would then issue, in varying areas, not far from the equivalent of six miles square.
In the eighteenth century especially, it was common to reserve certain lots of the town for the support of schools and the ministry.
This was the origin of that very important feature of Western society, federal land grants for schools and colleges.
[74:1] The General Courts also made regulations regarding the common lands, the terms for admitting inhabitants, etc. , and thus kept a firm hand upon the social structure of the new settlements as they formed on the frontier.
This practice, seen in its purity in the seventeenth century especially, was markedly different from the practices of other colonies in the settlement of their back lands.
For during most of the period New England did not use her wild lands, or public domain, as a source of revenue by sale to individuals or to companies, with the reservation of quit-rents; nor attract individual settlers by "head rights," or fifty-acre grants, after the Virginia type; nor did the colonies of the New England group often make extensive grants to individuals, on the ground of special services, or because of influence with the government, or on the theory that the grantee would introduce settlers on his grant.
They donated their lands to groups of men who became town proprietors for the purpose of establishing communities.
These proprietors were supposed to hold the lands in trust, to be assigned to inhabitants under restraints to ensure the persistence of Puritan ideals.
During most of the seventeenth century the proprietors awarded lands to the new-comers in accordance with this theory.
But as density of settlement increased, and lands grew scarce in the older towns, the proprietors began to assert their legal right to the unoccupied lands and to refuse to share them with inhabitants who were not of the body of proprietors.
The distinction resulted in class conflicts in the towns, especially in the eighteenth century,[75:1] over the ownership and disposal of the common lands.
