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Most history concentrates on the broad sweep of events, battles and political decisions, economic advance or decline, landmark issues and events, and the people who lived and made these events tend to be lost in the big picture. Cayton's lively new history of the frontier period in Indiana puts the focus on people, on how they lived, how they viewed their world, and what motivated them. Here are the stories of Jean-Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes; George Croghan, the ultimate frontier entrepreneur; the world as seen by George Rogers Clark; Josiah Hamar and John Francis Hamtramck; Little Turtle; Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison and William Henry Harrison; Tenskwatawa; Jonathan Jennings; Calvin Fletcher; and many others. Focusing his account on these and other representative individuals, Cayton retells the story of Indiana's settlement in a human and compelling narrative which makes the experience of exploration and settlement real and exciting. Here is a book that will appeal to the general reader and scholar alike while going a long way to reinfusing our understanding of history and the historical process with the breath of life itself.
List of contents
Foreword by Walter Nugent and Malcolm J. Rohrbough
1. The World of the Miami, 1700-1754
2. The World of George Croghan, 1750-1777
3. The Village of Vincennes, 1765-1777
4. The World of George Rogers Clark, 1778-1787
5. The World of Josiah Harmar and John Francis Hamtramck, 1787-1790
6. The World of Little Turtle, 1790-1795
7. The World of Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, 1795-1810
8. The World of Tenskwatawa, 1795-1811
9. The World of Jonathan Jennings, 1800-1816
10. The End of the Frontier, 1816-1850
Epilogue: "This Country of Liberty"
Acknowledgments
Essay on Sources
Index
About the author
Andrew R. L. Cayton is Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is author of The Frontier Republic: Ideology and Politics in Ohio Country, 1780-1825 and, with Peter S. Onuf, The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region.
Summary
Offers a look at the frontier period in Indiana history, based on the lives and experiences of representative individuals and families. This book retells the story of Indiana's settlement. It intends to reinfuse our understanding of history and the historical process with the breath of life itself.
