00:00 - Good afternoon.

00:03 - And can y'all hear me?

00:07 - I'll speak close to the mic.

00:09 - Okay.

00:11 - Good afternoon, and welcome to the session,

00:15 - which is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Archeological Council.

00:20 - On Pennsylvania's revolutionary frontiers,

00:23 - indigenous back country and underground.

00:29 - This session

00:30 - came about through the genius of Paul Douglas Newman,

00:34 - who is,

00:37 - he will be guest editing.

00:39 - Oh, I better introduce myself.

00:41 - I'm Linda Reese.

00:42 - I am editor of Pennsylvania History, but Paul will be guest

00:46 - editing an issue of Pennsylvania History

00:49 - for the summer of 2026.

00:52 - On Pennsylvania's revolutions.

00:55 - And there's going to be a series of articles

00:59 - on how Pennsylvania history, history,

01:03 - and especially Pennsylvania history has progressed since 1976.

01:09 - In the 50 years since the Bicentennial, and it has progressed quite a bit.

01:14 - And we're going to listen to three papers

01:17 - which demonstrate all the new ways we can research history.

01:23 - So I'm going to

01:24 - introduce all three of our speakers at once.

01:28 - This is great.

01:29 - We need more chairs. Yeah.

01:32 - I will introduce all three speakers at once,

01:35 - and then they will come up and give you their presentations.

01:38 - They will be relatively short

01:39 - presentations because this is in the nature of a round table.

01:43 - And we want to involve the audience and get your feedback on this.

01:48 - So without further ado, I'm going to introduce.

01:53 - Tim Shannon, Timothy J.

01:55 - Shannon is the Johnson Distinguished.

01:57 - Teaching Chair in the Humanities at Gettysburg College,

02:01 - where he teaches early American, Native American, and British history.

02:05 - His most recent book is a critical edition of Peter Williamson's

02:09 - 18th century captivity narrative narrative,

02:13 - French and Indian Cruelty,

02:17 - published by Edinburgh University Press in 2023.

02:20 - He's also the author of Indian Captive Indian King.

02:24 - Peter Williamson in America and Britain, which is,

02:30 - if you know about Peter Williamson, he's somewhat of a ne'er do well, shall we say.

02:36 - It was awarded the 2019.

02:38 - Frank Watson Book Prize for best Book Honors in Scottish history,

02:42 - and he also has authored Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier.

02:48 - Now, I have to say that

02:51 - he also for Pennsylvania history, the journal

02:55 - he of he guest edited

02:58 - a, series of articles on re thinking

03:04 - the Pennsylvania Frontier

03:07 - for the summer 2021 issue, and his article was rethinking it.

03:12 - Sorry.

03:12 - The title of the issue was Rethinking Pennsylvania's 18th Century Borderlands.

03:18 - And his article was on the F and the B word,

03:21 - which is frontier and border.

03:24 - Okay.

03:25 - And next we have Sarah Donovan, a Ph.D.

03:28 - candidate at William and Mary.

03:30 - Her dissertation, tentatively titled Transplant White Boys

03:35 - and the Sons of Paxton Transitions, Traditions

03:39 - of Extralegal Violence and the British Atlantic World.

03:43 - It explores the connections between the Paxton Boys, the Black Boys,

03:47 - the Augusta Boys in North America, and the white boys in Ireland.

03:52 - She argues that these groups of boys

03:55 - who adopted similar disguises

03:59 - and used similar tactics of violence to express

04:03 - similar grievances, illuminates the struggles for authority

04:06 - throughout the British Empire on the eve of the Age of Revolutions.

04:11 - Now, I will also add that last year, Sarah was a scholar in residence

04:16 - at the Pennsylvania State Archives, and she is

04:19 - preparing an article, for us,

04:24 - for the, for Pennsylvania history, probably in the winter or spring issue.

04:27 - But I will talk to you some more about that.

04:30 - Okay.

04:31 - And lastly, we have Doctor Jonathan Burns,

04:35 - a North American archeologist, director of the Cultural Resource.

04:39 - Institute at Junior College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he is

04:43 - also a professor in the history art history department.

04:48 - He specializes in the archeology of Pennsylvania,

04:50 - with a focus on 18th century fortifications and battlefields.

04:55 - Burns also directs the Veterans Archeology Program,

04:59 - a really cool program, a grassroots initiative that involves U.S.

05:04 - military veterans in archeological research,

05:07 - fostering their potential career interests

05:10 - and bringing their experience and insight to the projects.

05:14 - Now, I must also add, he did a brief article

05:18 - in the special issue, Rethinking Pennsylvania's Borderlands

05:23 - on a muslim token that was found at,

05:28 - where was it from?

05:29 - Fort Shirley, at Fort Shirley.

05:32 - So without further ado, let's

05:36 - welcome Tim.

05:46 - Good afternoon everyone.

05:47 - I hope everyone's feeling well fed and not too sleepy after, that lovely lunch.

05:53 - Thank you to Linda for that introduction.

05:55 - And to, Paul for for for planning this and for my, co-panelists

05:59 - for serving as well. I, I think we'll learn a lot.

06:02 - If you're in the morning session,

06:05 - the, Wayne, bottle was on.

06:07 - He he invoked, this image of using the opportunity, to prepare his

06:12 - talk of looking at his library and pulling books off his shelf.

06:16 - And that's exactly what I did. Wayne.

06:18 - When I started to work on this over the summer, I sat in my office for,

06:22 - you know, a nice morning just pulling books and books

06:24 - until they were stacked up all around me. And,

06:27 - it reminded

06:28 - me of a professor at my my job before coming to Gettysburg,

06:32 - a very senior member of the faculty who was kind of the senior Americanist.

06:36 - And no matter what course he taught, it always began with Columbus,

06:40 - and it was just a matter of how far he got in the semester.

06:43 - If you actually hit the content he was supposed to be teaching.

06:47 - And so, you know, I'm not going to start at the Meadowcroft.

06:51 - Rock shelter, but I am going to, kind of pull the camera back here.

06:55 - And rather than just focusing exclusively on the, revolution here, really

07:01 - look at where the historiography of Native Americans in Pennsylvania

07:05 - has gone, over the last 50 years.

07:10 - I think two related questions have shaped,

07:14 - the historiography of Pennsylvania's Indians, since 1975.

07:18 - First, does colonial Pennsylvania deserve its reputation

07:22 - as a peaceable kingdom where indigenous and colonial peoples

07:26 - managed to get along rather than warring against each other?

07:29 - And second, why did intercultural accommodation

07:33 - break down so suddenly and irretrievably in the second half of the 18th century,

07:38 - leading to genocidal violence and ethnic cleansing during the revolutionary era?

07:44 - And the answer to that first question, the consensus among historians

07:47 - has been a straightforward no,

07:49 - deflating Pennsylvania's reputation for uniquely peaceful Indian relations

07:54 - and making it seem more like its colonial neighbors to the north.

07:58 - In the south, the answer to the second question has been less clear.

08:02 - While historians agree that the Seven Years War ushered in a new

08:06 - and more deadly age for Pennsylvania's native peoples, their explanations

08:10 - for that change have varied

08:12 - according to the particular peoples and sources that they have focused on.

08:16 - Was it because of cultural prejudices and misunderstandings

08:19 - that doomed native and colonial relations from the start?

08:23 - Or did the intrusion of imperial warfare in the 1750s upset

08:27 - a regional balance of interests that had existed for several generations?

08:31 - Was intercultural violence the result of colonial authorities

08:34 - inability to govern the back country as the population expanded?

08:39 - Or did it arise from new attitudes about racial difference

08:42 - that became apparent among native and colonial peoples?

08:45 - As the 18th century progressed,

08:48 - the answer to this second question the answers to the second question

08:51 - had varied, but the overall impression they leave has turned.

08:54 - Pennsylvania's historical reputation on its head from being a peaceable kingdom

08:59 - to the laboratory that pioneered the ideology

09:02 - and tactics that led to the violent dispossession of native peoples.

09:06 - Is the United States expanded westward in the 19th century?

09:11 - I'm going to take these past 50 years and divide them

09:13 - into two very broad categories

09:15 - right down the middle, 1975 to 2000 and then 2002 today.

09:20 - So starting with that first 25 year period,

09:23 - I'm calling this the emergence of ethno history.

09:26 - Okay.

09:27 - Before 1976, the history of Pennsylvania's.

09:30 - Indian relations took a back seat to that of New England.

09:34 - In Virginia.

09:35 - The state of affairs reflected, I think, the rivalry between historians

09:39 - and Virginia and historians in Massachusetts over telling the story

09:43 - of early America and kind of leaving the Mid-Atlantic region out of it.

09:48 - But of course, Pennsylvania did enjoy what no other colony had an image of its

09:53 - inaugural moment that imprinted itself on the national memory.

09:57 - And here, of course, I'm

09:58 - referring to Benjamin West's famous painting Penn's Treaty with the Indians,

10:02 - and subsequent versions of it, that have appeared, particularly the,

10:06 - Peaceable Kingdoms paintings of Edward Hicks in the 19th century.

10:10 - These images, more than anything else, popularize this notion

10:13 - that Pennsylvania was exceptional among the 13 Colonies

10:17 - because of its commitment to fair dealings with its indigenous neighbors.

10:21 - But this was more legend

10:22 - than history, bolstering the political and social capital of the Penn family.

10:26 - In the same way that Plymouth Rock whitewashed the reputation of the pilgrims

10:30 - in the Pocahontas.

10:31 - And John Smith's story masks the brutality of early Jamestown.

10:36 - After Penn's treaty with the.

10:37 - Delaware Indians at Shaka Max, an event, in fact, ever occurred.

10:41 - Pennsylvania's Indians disappeared from our school book

10:44 - histories of early America until the Seven Years War,

10:48 - when they next appeared with Edward Braddock's defeat

10:52 - on the banks of Managua and the initiation of the bloody,

10:56 - frontier war that we call the French and Indian War.

10:59 - So how does the rise of ethno history change all that?

11:02 - I think, the pivotal figure here is Francis Jennings.

11:06 - His book, The Invasion of America Indians, colonialism,

11:10 - and the Count of Conquest, indicted historians for their mistreatment

11:14 - of Native Americans since the 17th century.

11:17 - And while that book did not deal in any great detail about Pennsylvania,

11:21 - it certainly introduced a whole host of topics that inspired

11:24 - a raft of subsequent dissertations and books,

11:27 - that, you know, the historiography of Pennsylvania has benefited from.

11:31 - When Jennings turned his attention to Pennsylvania, he dismantled

11:35 - the Peaceable Kingdom with the same vigor that he had used to take on the Puritans.

11:40 - But, one of my favorite essays by Jennings is actually

11:43 - a very short essay about William Penn that appeared in 1986.

11:48 - And in it he said the most amazing thing that I ever saw come from, Fritz.

11:53 - Jennings Penn, which was, I must begin with a confession of strong bias.

11:57 - I like William Penn.

12:00 - It's very hard to go through the rest of, of Jennings

12:03 - work and find such an open endorsement of a of a colonial figure.

12:08 - He thought Penn tried to be a good lord, as he called him, over his American

12:12 - fiefdom, dispensing evenhanded justice to colonists and natives alike.

12:17 - But in Jennings second book, The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire,

12:21 - he made Penn's honesty clearer by contrasting it with the craven

12:25 - this of his sons and their agent James Logan,

12:28 - who shared none of William Penn scruples when it came to purchasing Indian land.

12:33 - For Jennings, the brazen fraud of the Walking.

12:35 - Purchase of 1737 became the book end to Penn's Treaty.

12:40 - Whatever potential there might have been for a peaceable kingdom had been destroyed

12:44 - by the avarice and dishonesty of its founders heirs.

12:49 - The ethno historical turn

12:50 - initiated by Jennings led to a new wave of scholarship in Pennsylvania's.

12:54 - Indian history that I think peaked in the decade of the 1990s,

12:58 - just as I was finishing up graduate school and, and starting my career in 1991.

13:03 - Richard White's book on the Great Lakes region gave us the metaphor of the middle

13:07 - ground, a trope that seemed especially well-suited

13:10 - to describing the collision of native and colonial peoples in the Mid-Atlantic

13:14 - and Ohio regions, and was reflected in other books published in the 1990s

13:18 - by Michael McConnell, Eric Hinderaker and Jane Merritt,

13:24 - who was a student of, Richard White, in the very early 2000.

13:28 - The most influential of these ethno historical treatments

13:31 - of native Pennsylvania was James Merrill's Into the American Woods,

13:35 - which presented a much darker take on Pennsylvania's intercultural encounter.

13:40 - In Merrill's version of the story, any middle ground in Pennsylvania

13:43 - was an illusion. From the start.

13:45 - The worlds of Indians

13:46 - and colonists were too far apart, too far and too incomprehensible to each other

13:50 - to ever come together in any kind of enduring way.

13:53 - And I think of your, I mean, certainly there are graduate students here who could,

13:58 - who could,

13:59 - confirm or deny this, but I would imagine Merrill's book,

14:01 - you know, even though it's 25 years old, is still required reading

14:04 - if you're doing early American or Native American history and a graduate program

14:09 - since 2000, the rise of borderlands historiography and the redefinition

14:13 - of the colonial era as vast early America have made Pennsylvania's.

14:18 - Indian history part of a bigger indeed continental story.

14:22 - That is to say, the old generation paradigm of a westward moving line

14:26 - separating savagery from civilization is out, and zones of contact and conflict

14:32 - between a mosaic of contesting native and colonial peoples are in.

14:37 - This approach has been pioneered by scholars of the Spanish American

14:41 - frontier in the Southwest and Southeast, but has gradually found its way into

14:45 - the Mid Atlantic region, as is evident by Daniel Barr's work on early Pittsburgh.

14:50 - David Preston's work on colonial communities along

14:53 - the edges of Eric Hoya, Patrick Sparrow's reconsideration of Pennsylvania's

14:57 - border dispute disputes with Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia.

15:02 - A very recent example is also Christopher Pearl's new book,

15:06 - on the Upper Susquehanna Valley during the Revolutionary ERA.

15:08 - So there's a plug for you, hot off the presses as as it is.

15:12 - But it's a great book about settler community and the, upper,

15:17 - Susquehanna Valley during the revolutionary era,

15:20 - the lower Susquehanna Valley has also received its due of attention,

15:25 - as a borderland and covered with night.

15:27 - Nicole Eustace uses the diplomatic crisis caused by the death

15:31 - of the Seneca of a Seneca Indian at the hands of two Pennsylvania

15:35 - fur traders, to illuminate the clash between native notions

15:39 - of restorative justice and English notions of punitive justice.

15:42 - If you haven't seen that book, it came out just a few years ago.

15:45 - Big prize winner, really made a splash, and it's well worth reading.

15:50 - The rise of Borderlands history has also affected historians

15:54 - treatment of warfare in 18th century Pennsylvania.

15:57 - And this kind of brings us into the revolutionary era.

16:00 - A path breaker in this regard was Gregory Evans Doud, whose books

16:04 - have reconstructed the reconstructed the spiritual meaning

16:08 - that the prolonged struggle for the Ohio Country had for Native American peoples,

16:12 - and in a similar manner, Matthew Ward and Holly Mair have reexamined backcountry

16:17 - warfare in ways that have turned the old showdown in the wilderness

16:21 - between redcoats and warriors into a much more complicated

16:25 - conflict involving provincial soldiers, settlers and squatters.

16:29 - Camp followers and Native American communities.

16:32 - It's just a much broader mosaic now,

16:35 - oftentimes infused with a lot of social history,

16:38 - that has reshaped how we talk about warfare in 18th century Pennsylvania.

16:44 - And as the focus has shifted from peace to war

16:46 - in the historiography of Pennsylvania's Indians, the one historical development

16:51 - in which Pennsylvania appears to have been on the vanguard of American history

16:55 - concerns the intensification of racial violence.

16:59 - Other colonies, of course, experienced episodes of genocidal violence,

17:03 - but the attacks by Pennsylvanians on the peaceful towns of Conestoga in 1763

17:08 - and not in Hooton in 1782 signaled an intensification

17:13 - of this kind of violence that the United States carried

17:16 - into the 19th century all the way to Wounded Knee.

17:19 - This observation returns us to our second question

17:23 - how did a colony founded on Quaker principles managed to produce

17:26 - such a degree of racial animus towards its native neighbors?

17:30 - By the end of the 18th century,

17:32 - this question has been asked in the last,

17:35 - you know, 20 to 30 years by Daniel Richter and facing east from Indian Country

17:40 - and a bit more recently by Peter Silver and our Savage Neighbors,

17:44 - a book that was invoked, earlier this morning.

17:48 - Richter answer answers to the question, emphasize the racialization of difference

17:53 - on both sides of the cultural divide, a conviction that separate creations

17:57 - meant that mutual coexistence was possible, and this was held

18:00 - by both native peoples and by colonial peoples.

18:03 - Silber argued that the unity of Pennsylvania's

18:06 - ethnically and religiously diverse

18:08 - and very fractious colonial population was bought at the expense

18:12 - of the racial vilification of Indians, creating a notion of shared whiteness

18:16 - that was defined in out in opposition to native savagery.

18:21 - So looking forward the next 25 years and, you know, for

18:25 - for the graduate students, or recent, recently minted PhDs in the audience,

18:30 - how might the history of Pennsylvania's Native Americans be written?

18:37 - I do think the trope of the peaceable Kingdom has been laid

18:40 - to rest in colonial Pennsylvania is no longer the neglected

18:43 - sibling of the Chesapeake

18:45 - in the New England colonies and early American historiography,

18:48 - there's a very rich historiography of native Pennsylvania

18:51 - that's been produced by the historians I've invoked here

18:54 - early Pennsylvania has been transformed from an anomaly of Quaker inspired peace

18:59 - and brotherhood

19:00 - into the starting point for ethnic cleansing that the United States pursued

19:04 - against native Americans on a continental scale in the 19th century.

19:08 - And that's, you know, a rather sobering thought,

19:10 - right, that we've gone from that image of William Penn into treaty of shock.

19:14 - Max into to a wounded knee.

19:16 - As I said, the path forward, I think, points towards exploring how

19:19 - this Pennsylvania model was nationalized in the post-revolutionary era.

19:24 - One way,

19:25 - I think is exhibited by Laurie Dagger's recent book, Cultivating Empire.

19:29 - Capitalism, philanthropy,

19:30 - and the Negotiation of American Imperialism in Indian Country,

19:35 - which investigates

19:36 - how the rhetoric of what she calls race, benevolence, civilization, and removal

19:40 - intertwined in the early national period to speed the dispossession

19:43 - of the Shawnees, Miamis and other native peoples,

19:46 - some of whom had experienced earlier expulsions from Pennsylvania.

19:51 - Tigers attention to Quakers, Moravians, and the mission complex builds a bridge

19:56 - between the colonial and early national errors that illustrates

19:59 - the lingering impact of Pennsylvania's Indian relations on the United States.

20:04 - Another way to tell this story is by examining it

20:07 - from the native perspective, to look at Pennsylvania's Indians in exile

20:11 - after they had left the borders of the modern state of Pennsylvania.

20:15 - An example of this, I think, is Richard Pointers recent biography, Pacifist.

20:20 - Prophet Pop and Hank in the quest for Peace in Early America, a biography,

20:25 - that follows, a munsee Indian,

20:29 - Christian convert as he helps negotiate,

20:33 - his people's geographic moves,

20:36 - across the landscape from Pennsylvania, the Hudson River valley,

20:41 - into the Ohio Country and, and and beyond.

20:45 - It would be useful to see more scholarship that recovers the experiences

20:49 - of these Pennsylvania Indians

20:50 - on the move from their eastern homelands into the Ohio Country,

20:54 - eventually into Canada and the trans Mississippian West.

20:58 - After all, Pennsylvania was an artificial construct

21:01 - imposed on them by Charles the Second and William Penn.

21:05 - The holy experiment was Penn's venture, not theirs.

21:09 - To call them Pennsylvania's.

21:10 - Indians is in some ways a misnomer, because it implies a static quality

21:15 - that fixed them on the landscape that became the state of Pennsylvania

21:19 - until a tide of settlers, speculators, and soldiers uprooted and dispersed them

21:24 - like an ocean wave, obliterating a sandcastle.

21:27 - Historians owe it to them to follow their stories

21:30 - into their new homelands, all the way up to the present day.

21:34 - Thank you very much.

21:57 - Hello.

21:58 - Thank you all for being here.

21:59 - Thank you to Paul and Linda for organizing the panel and my fellow panelists.

22:04 - I think there's quite a bit of overlap, so I'm excited to see the conversation

22:08 - that generates so.

22:13 - From his vantage point as a colonial magistrate

22:15 - in Lancaster County, Edward Shippen was certainly in a better position

22:19 - than his Philadelphia counterparts to comment on the Pennsylvania frontier.

22:23 - In a July 1756 letter to Colonel John Alford, Shippen

22:27 - described the challenges of keeping troops supplied with ammunition

22:30 - and intelligence during the Seven Years War, writing,

22:33 - we are now in great distress and confusion, hearing almost every day

22:38 - of more or less of our back inhabitants being cut off.

22:41 - While Shipman's concerns certainly reflect his personal experience

22:45 - and fears living along the war torn Pennsylvanian frontier,

22:48 - he ultimately spends the rest of his letter framing his distress

22:52 - within the larger context of colonial and imperial strategies.

22:56 - To Shippen and his contemporaries, the frontier was a distinct space

23:00 - that brought with it specific challenges.

23:03 - Yet it could not be divorced from the broader goals of the British Empire.

23:07 - This connection between local concerns and broader provincial and imperial goals

23:12 - that Shippen highlights is reflected in the scholarship

23:15 - of the pre-revolutionary Mid-Atlantic frontier.

23:19 - Over the

23:19 - last 50 years, historians of 18th century Pennsylvanian frontier

23:23 - have created a robust historiography as they attempted to bring order

23:27 - to the confusing realities of the frontier from a myriad of perspectives.

23:31 - However, much like the geographic space they study, these works

23:35 - on the Pennsylvania backcountry occupy a historiographical frontier

23:39 - as well, often sitting on the fringes of other fields

23:42 - such as indigenous history, imperial history, and revolutionary history.

23:46 - This ambiguous position of frontier scholarship

23:49 - challenges the distinctness of the field, but also invites scholars to rethink

23:53 - the position of the Mid-Atlantic frontier, both historically and historiographical.

23:58 - At its core, frontier history is rooted in geographic specificity.

24:03 - To be a frontier historian, it means to study a particular place.

24:07 - However, situating the Pennsylvanian frontier within the overlapping

24:11 - frameworks of indigenous history, imperial history, and revolutionary history

24:15 - allows us to move beyond the confines of those geographic boundaries.

24:19 - The Pennsylvania frontier then becomes a stage upon which larger processes

24:23 - of indigenous diplomacy, imperial warfare, and revolutionary politics play out.

24:29 - However, frontier history should not simply melt into these other

24:32 - historiography.

24:34 - On the contrary, I argue that the intersection of these broad themes

24:37 - on the Pennsylvania frontier forms the basis of its analytical value.

24:42 - From the geographic fringe of the British Empire,

24:45 - the Mid-Atlantic frontier is an ideal candidate

24:47 - to become the center of our understanding of the pre-revolutionary world.

24:51 - One of the most obvious historiographical overlaps

24:54 - with the scholarship

24:55 - of the Pennsylvanian frontier is the question of Anglo native relations.

24:59 - The connections between indigenous history and frontier history

25:02 - lie in the origins of the field of indigenous history itself.

25:06 - Some of the most influential works that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s.

25:09 - During this gestational period of early native history, focus on questions

25:13 - of cultural contact and understanding between Native Americans and Europeans.

25:18 - Indeed, in my graduate seminar on early Native American history

25:22 - scholarship, like Richard White's Middle Ground and James Merrill's.

25:25 - Into the American Woods were among the first monographs we read.

25:29 - White's argument for a middle ground of collaboration

25:32 - and accommodation is unquestionably a frontier process,

25:35 - requiring the meeting of different cultures in contested spaces.

25:40 - Although Merrill, who, unlike white focuses

25:42 - explicitly on the Pennsylvanian frontier, argues against the middle ground

25:46 - as a useful framework for understanding Anglo native relations, he, too, places

25:50 - the Mid-Atlantic frontier at the center of these processes of negotiation.

25:55 - These works straddle the line between indigenous history and frontier history.

25:59 - By focusing on the inherently peripheral nature of Anglo indigenous contact,

26:04 - whether it's a culture of collaboration and accommodation,

26:08 - or a more rigid system of go betweens and negotiations,

26:12 - the moments of contact that white, Merrill and many other scholars of Anglo

26:16 - native relations highlight are rooted in the geographic context of the frontier.

26:22 - Therefore, while these early works on Anglo

26:24 - indigenous relations certainly functions as an entree into indigenous history,

26:29 - they also provide the foundation for frontier historians.

26:33 - Well, the Mid-Atlantic frontier functions as a point of convergence

26:36 - for indigenous history and frontier history.

26:38 - The consistent invocation of the Seven Years War

26:41 - as a moment of fracture for Anglo indigenous relations also connects

26:45 - frontier historiography to scholarship on the early British Empire.

26:49 - The Seven Years War may have splintered whites middle ground and put a

26:53 - stop to the peaceful negotiation of Merrill's go betweens,

26:56 - but both Jane Merritt and Patrick.

26:58 - Griffin demonstrate that the frontier continued to be a critical stage

27:02 - for understanding the forces at work in the mid-18th century,

27:05 - particularly as the frontier became more racialized in the postwar British Empire.

27:10 - Through her examination of the Moravian communities

27:13 - along the Pennsylvania frontier, Merritt argues that both white settlers

27:17 - and native groups struggled to reestablish their pre-war connections.

27:21 - In Merritt's view, the divide between White and Native was irreconcilable.

27:25 - By the time the British Empire began to renegotiate the terms of subject hood

27:29 - in the 1760s, Griffin's understanding of the British Empire

27:33 - fits with Merritt's characterization

27:35 - of a growing racialization along the Pennsylvania frontier.

27:39 - Using the Proclamation Line of 1763 as an analytical framework,

27:43 - Griffin grapples with the contested ideas of an increasingly racialized postwar.

27:47 - British identity.

27:48 - He argues that the proclamation line itself was a central feature

27:52 - in this growing racialization,

27:53 - as it quite literally drew the line between these civilized.

27:57 - British subjects and the uncivilized native groups beyond the line.

28:01 - As historians examined the

28:03 - functions and failures of empire along the Mid-Atlantic back country,

28:07 - their stories also remained inextricably linked to the geography of the frontier.

28:12 - Scholars like Patrick Griffin and Daniel Barr

28:15 - sought to understand the inability of the British Empire to enforce authority

28:18 - and control over the Pennsylvania frontier in the aftermath of the Seven Years War.

28:24 - In his exploration of the theoretical and ideological underpinning

28:28 - of the British Empire, Griffin argues that the proclamation line

28:31 - and therefore the British Empire as a whole, were two divorced

28:35 - from the chaos of the frontier to be effective,

28:38 - Barr paints a similarly unstable picture of the Pennsylvania backcountry

28:42 - as he explores the overlapping personal and political ambitions

28:46 - of imperial and provincial leaders in Pittsburgh.

28:49 - Barr characterizes the Seven Years War as a border war

28:52 - that forced British imperial leaders to consolidate their authority,

28:56 - which they did with varying levels of success.

28:59 - Significantly, Barr makes a clear distinction between control and authority,

29:03 - asserting that territorial control was merely the first step

29:07 - towards securing political authority

29:10 - through their examinations of the postwar British Empire.

29:13 - Both Griffin and Barr characterize the elusive authority

29:16 - of the British Empire as expressly territorial,

29:19 - which in turn centers the frontier as a fundamental analytic framework.

29:24 - However,

29:25 - any examination of the historiography of the Pennsylvania frontier

29:29 - would be incomplete without acknowledging the foundational role

29:32 - violence played in nearly every facet of frontier life.

29:36 - Perhaps the clearest example of this is the,

29:39 - is the Paxton Boys and actual legal group of Presbyterian Scots.

29:42 - Irishmen in Lancaster County who massacred the peaceful Conestoga Indians,

29:47 - protected by the Pennsylvania government in the winter of 1763 and 64.

29:51 - The Paxton Boys were shortly followed by the Black Boys,

29:55 - who formed in Cumberland County in the spring of 1765

29:58 - to destroy goods held at Fort Loudon, intended for trade

30:01 - with Native Americans in the West at posts like Pittsburgh and Detroit.

30:06 - Much like the frontier that they seem to represent,

30:08 - the Paxton Boys and their contemporaries, the Black Boys

30:11 - fit within several historiographical frameworks,

30:15 - often characterized as the harbingers of violence, war, and chaos.

30:19 - The Paxton Boys and the Black Boys frequently appear in both the scholarship

30:23 - on England native relations and the scholarship

30:25 - on the limits of the British Empire along the Mid-Atlantic frontier.

30:30 - However, since Burke Kendall's 1946 article,

30:33 - historians have also sought to integrate

30:35 - the Paxton Boys into the historiography of the American Revolution.

30:39 - According to James Kirby Martin, who wrote a critique of handle's argument

30:42 - in a 1971 Pennsylvania history article, Hindle embraced Frederick Jackson Turner's

30:47 - frontier thesis by arguing that the Paxton Boys

30:49 - represented a democratic push for civilization.

30:52 - Martin, on the other hand, characterized the Paxton Boys

30:56 - as self-interested and inherently violent.

30:59 - Much of the scholarship since Martin's 1971 article

31:02 - sought to place the Paxton Boys and their contemporaries somewhere

31:05 - in the spectrum between Hindle and Martin's arguments.

31:09 - To that end, many scholars, such as Scott, Paul Gordon and Jay Donnis, frame

31:12 - both the Paxton Boys and the Black Boys as a distinctly provincial issue.

31:17 - Taken as a whole, the scholarship on the Paxton Boys

31:19 - and the Black Boys mirrors the field of frontier history itself,

31:23 - as these violent groups become an avenue for understanding

31:25 - the mid-18th century world.

31:28 - Despite the deluge of articles throughout the last 50 years

31:32 - and the consistent invocation of the Paxton Boys and the Black Boys

31:35 - throughout the scholarship

31:36 - on indigenous relations and authority of the British Empire,

31:39 - these groups did not inspire a full monograph into until 2009,

31:44 - focusing explicitly on the Paxton Boys and the Black Boys, respectively.

31:47 - Kevin Kenney and Patrick Spiro once again bring the Frontier Center stage

31:51 - as they explore these groups

31:52 - within the context of the coming of the American Revolution.

31:56 - To Kenney, the Paxton Boys served as a catalyst for a political crisis

31:59 - that prompted Pennsylvanians to question how the government ought to be run.

32:03 - Kenney asserts that the Paxton Boys

32:05 - began as a product of the imperial and colonial goals and structures

32:09 - that had permeated the frontier throughout the first half of the 18th century,

32:14 - but by the end of the pamphlet war that followed, the Paxton Boys march

32:17 - on Philadelphia, they became clear precursors to the American Revolution.

32:22 - This characterization of the Paxton Boys is echoed in Patrick.

32:25 - Sparrow's 2018 seminal work on the Black Boys, titled Frontier Rebels.

32:30 - Although Sparrow does not trace the Black Boys as far back as Kenney

32:33 - traces the Paxton Boys, he does make an explicit connection

32:36 - between the actions of the Black Boys and the American Revolution, arguing

32:40 - that the black boys actions in 1765 represented a shift

32:44 - against the British and British Empire in North America that was just as,

32:48 - if not more important than the Stamp Act crisis that shook eastern elites.

32:52 - That same year.

32:54 - By drawing connections between the Paxton Boys and the Black.

32:57 - Boys, the American Revolution, Kenney and Spiro once again emphasize

33:01 - the centrality of the Pennsylvania frontier as a critical lens

33:04 - through which we can understand the forces that led to the American Revolution.

33:09 - Over the last 50 years, the pre-revolutionary Pennsylvania

33:12 - frontier has endured as a place where historians can untangle

33:16 - the complexity of the 18th century British Atlantic world.

33:20 - Scholars from the fields of indigenous history, British imperial history,

33:24 - and the history of the American Revolution demonstrate time

33:27 - and again the value of the frontier as an analytical framework.

33:30 - This history of graphical integration is perhaps best demonstrated

33:34 - by the most recent scholarship

33:35 - on the Pennsylvania frontier by Christopher Pearl and Robert Parkinson.

33:39 - In their respective monographs, Parkinson and Pearl emphasize

33:42 - the contingency and precariousness of the pre-revolutionary frontier.

33:46 - Parkinson redefines empire as inherently chaotic and bewildering.

33:50 - In doing so, Parker Parkinson illuminates the indigenous actors

33:54 - that the story of colonialism has left in darkness, placing indigenous families

33:58 - like the ship LME family on eating playing ground with their white counterparts.

34:02 - Similarly, Pearl reframes

34:04 - the American Revolution as an Indian war rooted in land conflicts.

34:08 - However, in tracing the roots of this anti-Indian revolutionary ideology,

34:12 - Pearl illuminates

34:13 - the fractured relationships and alliances between different native polities

34:17 - and how those fractures collided with the equally confusing

34:20 - overlaps between British colonial and imperial leaders.

34:23 - Pearls and Parkinson's acknowledgment of the several overlapping historiography

34:27 - of the Pennsylvania frontier demonstrates the necessity of using the frontier

34:31 - as an analytical framework,

34:34 - despite the undeniable value of the Pennsylvania frontier

34:37 - as a venue for understanding larger historical processes, the chaos

34:41 - and confusion of the frontier often follows secondary to the more ordered

34:45 - politics of urban centers of Philadelphia or even London.

34:49 - Well, there's certain a very real geographic reality to this periphery.

34:52 - Metropole dichotomy, and analytically, it's hard to view the frontier as anything

34:57 - less than central to the creation

34:59 - and upkeep of an empire, a revolution, or a nation state.

35:03 - As the British Empire and the emerging American nation struggle

35:06 - to hold boundaries both territorial and territorially and ideologically,

35:11 - the frontier provides

35:12 - a space for us to best understand the core character of these polities.

35:17 - Similarly, as frontier historiography sits on the fringes of other histories,

35:22 - it provides

35:22 - historians with a deeper understanding of the forces that shape North America

35:26 - in the British Atlantic world throughout the long 18th century.

35:30 - Thank you.

35:48 - Okay.

35:48 - That's the way you're inviting archeologists

35:52 - to be, which helps the.

35:56 - Science to.

36:17 - Okay.

36:17 - Well. Wow. That's warming up.

36:19 - Thank you all for, coming to the session.

36:21 - And thank you, Linda and the organizers for, putting this together.

36:25 - I am, always thrilled to come talk to historians about archeology.

36:30 - And, in fact, a lot of the archeology I've been doing lately

36:35 - has intersected with history and been kind of under the realm

36:38 - of battlefield archeology or conflict archeology.

36:43 - So when I was asked to summarize the last 50 years

36:46 - of archeological research in Pennsylvania on Revolutionary War era sites,

36:52 - I jumped at the chance to come talk to you for a moment

36:55 - because I could weigh in on, some of these sites.

36:57 - I've actually been, conducting research on with colleagues and,

37:02 - and or seeing it kind of unfold over the last

37:06 - couple of years of different projects that are really interesting.

37:11 - So archeologists love that history.

37:14 - And we also love to use that history to, make the case for material culture

37:20 - being linked to place on the landscape as well as as the history

37:24 - that we all love to, learn about and interact with.

37:28 - So here in Pennsylvania, specific,

37:32 - most of the Revolutionary War activity

37:35 - that has seen archeological,

37:40 - progress or archeological projects,

37:43 - have mostly been in eastern Pennsylvania,

37:45 - not beyond the frontier.

37:48 - Most of my archeology experience is actually in frontier

37:52 - fortifications and battlefields from the French and Indian War in,

37:56 - you know, western and central Pennsylvania. So,

38:00 - but lately I've been branching out into Revolutionary War era sites as well.

38:05 - So the material evidence for this history, for example,

38:11 - most archeology is done intentionally in this case,

38:14 - this is a piece of Revolutionary War history that was found by accident,

38:18 - in the Delaware River, by the Delaware River Yacht Club or boating club,

38:24 - something you don't want to hit with a boat, but this is a,

38:27 - an example of of river defenses that would have been, in place,

38:31 - sunk into the Delaware River to defend Philadelphia, from attack by the British.

38:36 - And so their ships couldn't necessarily navigate and come up through the channels.

38:40 - These would have been,

38:43 - embedded in, cribbing and have ballast

38:46 - and rock kind of holding these things in the channel. So,

38:50 - over the years,

38:51 - most of these have been swept up and, and, you know, gotten out of the way.

38:55 - And in this case, we were lucky enough to to have,

38:58 - what we call a happenstance find or just an accidental find.

39:03 - You can see that these would be wooden.

39:04 - And then there was also a, forged pike

39:07 - on the end of this.

39:11 - But as far as archeological projects are concerned, when we

39:15 - look at what types of projects have been,

39:19 - at times been invested in over the last 50 years, we can kind of break these into,

39:24 - four different categories of sites

39:26 - battlefields, fortifications, encampments

39:30 - and industrial sites and

39:34 - specifically here in Pennsylvania, some of these battlefields

39:37 - that we've had archeology done at recently, Brandywine and Paoli.

39:42 - Right.

39:42 - Those are pretty, well known battlefields.

39:45 - And these are, difficult archeological sites,

39:49 - to pin down because there's really just evidence exists of the artifacts

39:53 - that were dropped beyond just what we know from the historic record,

39:59 - fortifications like Fort Mifflin, of course.

40:01 - That's one of Pennsylvania's Crown Revolutionary War era fortification,

40:07 - that has seen, University of Pennsylvania,

40:11 - research done in the last few decades.

40:13 - This is an active investigation of this site.

40:16 - And they also use this as a as a great community touchstone

40:19 - to get back to, the Revolutionary War,

40:24 - right at your fingertips, essentially to experience it.

40:27 - Same with Fort Roberto.

40:28 - That's more up in central PA, where I'm from, up in Blair County.

40:31 - There is, a reconstructed fort called,

40:35 - Fort Roberto or the lead mine, Fort.

40:39 - These are a little bit easier to pin down archeologically

40:42 - because we can find the artifacts, but also the remnants of the features

40:46 - of the foundations and the fortifications,

40:50 - encampments again.

40:52 - There's been a lot of work recently done, with respect to encampment archeology,

40:57 - especially at Valley Forge, where, Washington's.

41:02 - Oh, winter camp,

41:04 - the First Continental Army, the organization of that army

41:08 - and can be interpreted further beyond what we have in the written record.

41:12 - When we look at what's left in the material record,

41:17 - and then camp security right here in town,

41:19 - some of you might be familiar with that site.

41:21 - Very recently,

41:24 - success has been achieved in locating some of the Palisades

41:27 - section of camp security, which was a POW camp.

41:33 - And, for housing British.

41:37 - POWs,

41:38 - industrial sites like Hopewell Furnace.

41:41 - Extremely important to,

41:43 - the revolutionary cause, achieving

41:47 - resource independence from Great Britain was,

41:50 - it was very important that we were able to this colony and the colonies were able

41:55 - to utilize their own natural resources and, and fund their own war effort.

42:00 - So we have a lot of good information from Hopewell Furnace.

42:03 - It dates back to the before the Revolutionary War era.

42:06 - And then a lot of the archeology that's done is more of the of the 19th century,

42:11 - because that site stayed in, in production for, for some time.

42:15 - So the archeology is, is more complex at a long term site like that.

42:20 - And finally I've listed Washington Burg or, Carlisle Barracks,

42:25 - one of the oldest structures,

42:28 - owned by, well, the oldest military structure owned by the U.S.

42:31 - Army is at, what would have been Washington burg, where George Washington's

42:36 - continental Army needed a place to manufacture and store munitions

42:41 - for their war effort.

42:47 - Archeology

42:48 - has greatly benefited from technological advances.

42:53 - So in the past 50 years, we've really come to understand

42:56 - how to use things as simple as metal detectors.

42:58 - That's a geophysical device, actually, that was really applied to archeology

43:02 - pretty early on when,

43:04 - lots of times military veterans would return home having used,

43:08 - these devices, in a military context

43:11 - and would come home and apply them to, looking for archeological sites

43:15 - here in North America, some battlefields are are found

43:19 - and defined that way today.

43:22 - Some of the other geophysical techniques that we use are ground penetrating radar,

43:26 - anything that allows archeologists to see below the ground

43:29 - to see disturbances, to see something to target, to go after.

43:33 - So we're not digging blindly.

43:35 - These kind

43:36 - of of technologies are indispensable.

43:39 - Now, when we head out to a site like the Hessian powder magazine,

43:42 - I'll show you here in a little bit.

43:46 - Radiometer and lidar is also another really important tool

43:49 - that we're able to utilize, really, detailed mapping

43:52 - that allows you to sometimes even see the remnants of old roads.

43:55 - Like, I work along the Forbes.

43:57 - Road out in western PA, and you can see sections of the Forbes Road

44:00 - on these extremely detailed topographic maps, lidar maps,

44:05 - the next group here is geospatial technologies.

44:08 - Just the ability to map these locations is extremely important to us because,

44:13 - you know, archeology is kind of the litmus test

44:15 - or the proof that this history happened here.

44:17 - So we,

44:20 - want to make sure

44:20 - that we nail it down on the landscape as, as accurately as possible.

44:25 - Oftentimes we have to continue to return to these sites for sometimes decades

44:29 - to, to really completely understand them and to continue to, to interpret them.

44:35 - Let's see.

44:36 - So site mapping, global positioning, that's that's crucial technology

44:40 - that we utilize today that really makes our jobs

44:42 - a lot easier, makes the information more accurate.

44:46 - Geochemical analyzes I have,

44:49 - I'm lucky enough to work with a geochemist at my college

44:53 - who Ryan Mather, who, is an isotope specialist.

44:56 - So he actually helped me.

44:57 - We started working together when I,

45:00 - when I reported on the copper charm that we found it,

45:03 - Fort Shirley,

45:04 - that Muslim charm was made out of copper, and he's a copper isotope, guru.

45:08 - So he was able to help us source that copper back to the Cornwall mines

45:13 - and, give it some, lend it some legitimacy as far as

45:16 - being what we thought it was as old as what we thought it was.

45:19 - Now we're using, isotope analysis,

45:24 - for our lead ammunition that we find on battlefields.

45:26 - So this became a really important

45:29 - kind of thrust when we were working with,

45:32 - trying to define the the archeological signature of various

45:37 - lead sources.

45:40 - Let's see here 3D mapping and,

45:46 - This is a great way, like 3D scanning and printing

45:49 - can allow us to put artifacts in the hands of students, right.

45:53 - That you could, you know, put something in their hand and say, what is this?

45:55 - And they're like, I have no idea.

45:56 - And then it's a springboard for,

45:58 - you know, when I go to show and tell at school,

46:00 - when I get roped into doing that, I'm, I go armed with lots of 3D prints

46:05 - and, and the kids, you know, give are giving me hugs

46:07 - and not wanting me to leave because it's it's making this tangible to them.

46:13 - Between that and just being able to share

46:15 - the specifications of, of an artifact with anyone in the world, right?

46:19 - They could print that information.

46:21 - So, very important to our work.

46:24 - And finally, just keeping track of all this information,

46:28 - information technologies, GIS, spatial databases,

46:32 - relational databases, these are the things that help us

46:36 - deal with the density of data that archeology creates.

46:41 - So, for example, when I was saying the lead isotope information

46:45 - for the French and Indian War era, we didn't really know,

46:50 - we don't know all of the lead sources, but we had hunches.

46:53 - So geochemical these lead sources can be tracked

46:57 - because the isotopes that are picked up when LEDs are formed at different points

47:01 - in time, pick up different isotopes and different trace elements

47:05 - to a geochemist, they can look at the numbers

47:08 - you get from reading these various isotope ratios against one another,

47:13 - and they can say, ooh, this is Missouri, or this is Canadian or this is European.

47:18 - And that gave us, a lot of,

47:20 - clout with the project we were working on outside Ligonier,

47:24 - which was to define George Washington's friendly fire, battlefield

47:28 - and the way that we did that was in addition to mapping all of the evidence,

47:32 - we did the lead isotope analysis, and we could see, French like New France

47:37 - kind of being supplied from mines from Illinois and Missouri,

47:43 - and Quebec, whereas the European signal is really

47:46 - what most of the, provincial troops would have been armed with.

47:51 - So, that really opened up,

47:55 - another line of evidence for battlefield archeology.

47:58 - In fact, when I presented this information at the Middle Atlantic Conference,

48:03 - this past spring, I instantly was contacted by some other,

48:07 - well known battlefield archeologist, Doug Scott, from Custer.

48:11 - Battlefield instantly got Ahold of me and said, hey, I heard

48:14 - you guys are able to fingerprint lead now, right?

48:17 - This is this becomes

48:19 - huge only for the colonial era, because once you get to the Civil War and,

48:22 - you know, then these it's it's known it's not going to be as informative.

48:25 - So for the colonial era, knowing the leads and being able to recognize them

48:30 - is, is extremely important.

48:34 - So battlefields like Brandywine and Paoli,

48:36 - I chose these two images because the Brandywine shows a battle map.

48:40 - You're probably familiar with these.

48:41 - This is what we put together from history.

48:43 - But also the National Park Service Battlefield.

48:46 - Manual shows us how to go about proving these troop locations

48:50 - and kind of being the ground truth for what we suspect.

48:56 - From the historical record.

48:58 - And then here at Paoli, you can see archeologists

49:01 - with a total station map doing the painstaking

49:03 - mapping single artifacts at a time as they're recovered.

49:07 - And this is really how we build up the evidence

49:10 - in the case, rather than just finding one item.

49:13 - It's this constellation of artifacts that

49:16 - that we map and interpret.

49:20 - Battle.

49:21 - This is two of my veteran participants, from the veterans Archeology program.

49:26 - They are, looking for lead at a battlefield.

49:29 - Really? There's.

49:30 - That's the only thing you're going to find are are artifacts, right.

49:33 - So, like, lead buttons and buckles,

49:37 - and then all sorts of iron objects.

49:39 - So, this is a way to,

49:45 - in this case, this was private property.

49:47 - We were trying to prove that we had found George Washington's

49:50 - heretofore undiscovered battlefield, that no one really wanted to remember,

49:54 - and to prove that to, a panel of historians,

49:58 - military historians was the bar was pretty high.

50:01 - So to do that, we do that with the detailed spatial information,

50:04 - but also that isotopic information bring all the lines of evidence together.

50:08 - We even had cadaver dogs, archeological cadaver dogs there, because

50:12 - oftentimes the battlefields there are interments.

50:14 - And this was the case, on our site.

50:17 - So that is to say that archeology is kind of developed, this specialized subfield

50:22 - called conflict archeology or battlefield archeology, where, we're

50:27 - the participants are highly skilled in technicians in use, utilizing

50:31 - spatial mapping, but also, metal detection technology.

50:40 - Port Mifflin, like I mentioned before, is,

50:44 - is a vibrant place.

50:45 - You can go there and visit and see archeological interpretation,

50:49 - but also projects being done,

50:53 - on a seasonal basis.

50:54 - And those are being run by University of Pennsylvania.

50:58 - Fort Roberto is an interesting,

51:00 - frontier fortification, in that this fort was constructed

51:04 - to protect the lead mine that led mine, that I mentioned that,

51:08 - the colonial troops needed to have resource independence.

51:12 - So George Washington, and Daniel Roberto cooked up this idea

51:17 - to go and exploit this lead source in Sinking Valley and Current.

51:21 - It's Blair County now.

51:24 - But the fortification was there to protect them from,

51:26 - you know, from attack while they were doing

51:29 - the primary resource extraction and then also putting it into a furnace

51:33 - and refining it down into bars to be then shipped

51:36 - and hopefully make it out to the battlefield.

51:40 - That was a great project because it happened right in the middle of Covid.

51:43 - We were looking for a pet site to go to so we could continue to work,

51:46 - and that's only a half an hour from our school.

51:49 - So we started working there.

51:50 - My colleague Brian Mather once again did some geophysical, surveys,

51:56 - not only to do some work to look at the extant mines, but we also knew that

52:00 - they had abandoned the original mine and moved to a different location.

52:04 - So we were able to, well, let me back up for one second.

52:09 - This site was the target of an archeological excavation back

52:11 - in the 1930s.

52:13 - Before World War two, we had some,

52:17 - it's not money, but it was kind of like Works Progress.

52:20 - Administration money utilized by the state archeologist Donald Caswell.

52:24 - And he, conducted an excavation to basically,

52:29 - find a section of Fort Roberto's palisade,

52:32 - but also the the furnace was still sitting there in ruins.

52:35 - So they knew they were kind of on the site.

52:37 - So they did a lot of work to,

52:41 - to sort of document and interpret what was there.

52:43 - And then this project unfortunately got interrupted by World War Two.

52:47 - They lost all the records and the artifacts.

52:49 - So I'm still trying to track those down, but they did enough work to,

52:53 - allow reconstruction and, for the Bicentennial,

52:58 - Blair County was awarded some money, and then they reconstructed this sport,

53:02 - but at a reduced size, they shrunk it by down

53:06 - to a third scale.

53:09 - And so what that does when you go on the site today, everyone's

53:12 - you're telling them this is where the fort was.

53:13 - Yeah, but this is a shrunken version of the fort.

53:15 - And so we've been working in the past couple of years to do a little bit

53:19 - more work with metal detection, but also with remote sensing to try to see

53:23 - if we can pick up, the old palisade lines or the old edges of the fortification.

53:29 - And we think we've done just that.

53:30 - And we we found that other pesky,

53:35 - mineshaft that was written about, but nobody knew where it was.

53:40 - We did our lead analysis, and

53:42 - we were able to see that most of the lead

53:43 - we found there, the things that they were armed

53:45 - with, was still European, as you might guess.

53:48 - You're not going to smell that. And like, put it right in your gut instantly.

53:50 - But the bars of lead that we found

53:53 - matched this Roberto signature, which is a unique lead signature.

53:57 - So now we could potentially go out and look at,

54:01 - battlefield lead collections from,

54:04 - other famous battlefields and see if any of this

54:07 - actually made it into the war effort, for example,

54:11 - in addition to that, the the leader and remote sensing that we did allowed us

54:14 - to sort of see the edge of the forts, sort of how it was

54:17 - right up to the edge of this cliff line where the original mine was.

54:21 - So, we offered some more information here, like, yes, there's a reconstruction,

54:25 - but here's really how it's set and how how much area it took up.

54:31 - We did ground penetrating radar,

54:32 - and we found this anomaly out in the middle of a cornfield.

54:37 - We had a little bit of a clue because no corn was growing in this area.

54:41 - So this old shaft from 250 years ago is still, you know,

54:45 - kind of gnarly and hard for, plants to grow on.

54:49 - So we went back there and found this with a machine,

54:53 - small excavator.

54:54 - We're able to see the pit.

54:56 - The stratigraphy is great.

54:57 - We did we did some recording there.

54:59 - And so now we know where that is, too.

55:00 - So, long story short, archeology helps us find places before they get gobbled up.

55:05 - And by construction, for example, you know, where somebody

55:09 - puts a convenience store down, it might be a good idea to know where camp

55:12 - security is or to know where some of these other sprawling archeological sites are.

55:17 - So Valley Forge,

55:18 - you probably know most about Valley Forge, but camp security here, in town,

55:22 - these are going to leave a different kind of an archeological signature.

55:25 - It's not combat, it's it's military, but it's different.

55:28 - It's like downtime or it's camp or it's prison camp.

55:31 - So you're going to find a different host of artifacts.

55:33 - We're actually coming here next week.

55:35 - The veterans archeology program to to do some survey

55:38 - for the Friends of Camp Security and try to move the ball forward with

55:43 - understanding that, palisade location,

55:47 - archeological features though

55:49 - this cache of bayonets from Valley Forge.

55:53 - If you never, saw those.

55:55 - That's pretty impressive, right?

55:56 - That's like, 30 bayonets in a pit.

56:01 - And it was found by, again, another group called Bravo,

56:03 - which is a metal detection group who started pulling one after another

56:07 - out of the ground and realized that it was a, you know, a cache or a trash pit.

56:11 - So they did some archeology on it, and there you can see them in the ground.

56:15 - So that's pretty amazing that, you know, this stuff is not that deep underground,

56:19 - and it's easily destroyed by earthmoving.

56:25 - Speaking of which, here's Camp Security's palisade.

56:27 - Here's archeological features.

56:29 - Once again, it's not just artifacts, it's the architectural features

56:33 - dug down into the ground, that give us, as archeologists, more of that context

56:38 - and more of that ground truth that this is indeed the enclosure

56:44 - industrial sites like Hopewell Furnace.

56:46 - Like I said, you can visit that site and Washington Burg,

56:50 - the Hessian powder magazine at Carlisle is a little harder to get to.

56:53 - You just have to go to the check in desk and make an appointment

56:56 - and give them your license and all all your information

56:59 - so you can get on to the to the active Army base that's there.

57:03 - But you can see this,

57:05 - this is a picture of the Hessian powder magazine

57:07 - after it was converted into a guardhouse.

57:09 - And it's survived the burning of,

57:12 - during the Gettysburg Campaign, most of the post was burned down.

57:15 - But this structure survived because it is, you know, four feet thick

57:19 - stone walls built to house the munitions for the First Continental Army.

57:26 - We did ground

57:27 - penetrating radar there, all the way up against the building.

57:31 - And we were asked by the Heritage and Education Center of the U.S.

57:35 - Army if we would help with the historic structures report.

57:39 - So to understand how old that building is and to know if it's really

57:42 - what we thought it was, the Hessian powder magazine,

57:44 - we had to see what was below ground.

57:46 - So we did a ground penetrating radar survey found eight anomalies

57:51 - projecting out along the two lateral sides of this structure.

57:55 - And what we found when we dug down to them is we could see the remnants of these

57:58 - huge buttresses or counter forts,

58:02 - if you can.

58:03 - Salt Lake Battlefield and fortification construction manuals of the era.

58:08 - They were shown how to build these things right down to the,

58:11 - you know, specifications so that they would breathe,

58:14 - so that they wouldn't blow up unintentionally.

58:18 - Line them with brick.

58:19 - And we even made a little 3D

58:23 - model here so you can see what's below the ground there.

58:25 - Outside of the Hessian powder magazine, is,

58:29 - is still primary archeological context.

58:32 - We actually found a Civil War era button on top of the rubble, which helped us date

58:37 - when they tore these down.

58:41 - So I know I probably talked a little bit too long,

58:43 - so I'm going to leave us with that last slide here.

58:46 - The Hessian powder magazine again.

58:48 - It's it's one of the structures that the archeology around

58:51 - it is, is composed of artifacts and features.

58:55 - Right.

58:56 - And then the, the significance of the structure went on so far as to be

59:02 - one of the primary buildings of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

59:06 - So this was, this was sort used as their sort of,

59:11 - their jail.

59:12 - So, a lot of, a lot of history wrapped up around this historic structure.

59:18 - And it was an honor to,

59:19 - to get to, to poke around there because that's on an army base

59:22 - that's never been really disturbed, since its inception.

59:27 - So with that, I'll leave you and hopefully answer some questions for you.

59:30 - Thank you very much.

59:42 - Thank you.

59:48 - Okay.

59:49 - We've heard three great presentations,

59:52 - and I just jotted down

59:54 - a few thoughts while they were speaking.

59:58 - 764 And I want to ask you a question.

01:00 - 05.160 Who here does not use a computer

01:00 - 08.187 with their history, research and writing?

01:00 - 10.499 Nobody.

01:00 - 13.202 50 years ago, this wasn't possible.

01:00 - 15.154 We used IBM Selectric.

01:00 - 17.439 Selectric typewriters,

01:00 - 22.118 and we did our research in the library or in archives

01:00 - 25.772 and so this is one observation,

01:00 - 29.575 about the last 50 years is the advent of the computer,

01:00 - 34.056 which is the technology has greatly accelerated our ability

01:00 - 38.167 to to do research and and to write it up.

01:00 - 43.532 I'm thinking of websites like HathiTrust

01:00 - 47.577 in place of the library, a wonderful website.

01:00 - 51.423 And, you know, if you have some obscure pamphlet or book

01:00 - 54.450 you want to look up, great website,

01:00 - 58.137 Excel spreadsheets.

01:00 - 00.099 They're really great

01:01 - 03.126 for, creating statistics

01:01 - 06.279 and that sort of thing, even though I don't understand them myself,

01:01 - 10.416 I can't use them anyway.

01:01 - 13.986 And and just the sheer technology,

01:01 - 19.475 as, Jonathan has demonstrated, the GPS,

01:01 - 23.846 lidar, ground penetrating radar.

01:01 - 26.075 All this is it lidar.

01:01 - 29.519 This is all accelerated our ability to understand,

01:01 - 34.483 the, the holes in the ground, shall we say.

01:01 - 36.301 And we had a professor.

01:01 - 39.722 Carl Scott refused to say the truth lies in the holes.

01:01 - 41.590 Men dig in the ground.

01:01 - 46.478 And this technology has greatly, added to that.

01:01 - 47.970 That's. It's just wonderful.

01:01 - 50.532 Another observation.

01:01 - 52.868 Oh, and also augmented reality.

01:01 - 55.895 If you were at the plenary session.

01:01 - 58.948 Wow. I mean, wow.

01:01 - 03.395 And and another thing I don't fully understand,

01:02 - 06.422 and it's somewhat scares me, is I,

01:02 - 08.684 artificial intelligence.

01:02 - 10.953 What's going to happen with that?

01:02 - 15.364 I hope our history does not get perverted by artificial intelligence,

01:02 - 18.668 but this is this is the world we're in now.

01:02 - 22.598 Another observation,

01:02 - 25.200 in the last 50 years,

01:02 - 29.545 I can at least speak for the PA Historical Association when I say

01:02 - 32.815 we've had an integration of disciplines.

01:02 - 36.602 As I often like to say, historians,

01:02 - 41.574 don't live in a vacuum, even though some, some might think so, but,

01:02 - 47.346 no, we have reached out to the allied disciplines of asking ology,

01:02 - 50.442 historic preservation, museum

01:02 - 53.453 studies, so on and so forth. So

01:02 - 56.048 that's a great thing.

01:02 - 59.075 It's a wonderful thing.

01:02 - 01.804 And one last thing I have observed,

01:03 - 04.831 which I think someone needs to look into,

01:03 - 11.037 is the presence of African-Americans on the Pennsylvania frontier.

01:03 - 14.373 We don't necessarily hear a lot about that,

01:03 - 17.252 and I think there should be more research on it.

01:03 - 19.421 So I'm going to say,

01:03 - 23.850 you know, it wasn't all this pioneering wasn't just done by the white guys.

01:03 - 24.761 They had their slaves

01:03 - 27.787 along with them to help build their houses and their buildings

01:03 - 31.083 and reap the fields and stuff like that.

01:03 - 34.260 So I'd like to hear more about that too, in the future.

01:03 - 38.798 So on that note, I'd like to open it up,

01:03 - 42.427 open it up for discussion.

01:03 - 45.454 Any observations,

01:03 - 48.724 anything you'd like to contribute?

01:03 - 50.619 Come on.

01:03 - 51.643 Okay.

01:03 - 55.290 Okay.

01:03 - 58.060 So, based on this idea

01:03 - 01.754 that for a very long time, still looking for something special,

01:04 - 05.341 I think there's always that also reflects what.

01:04 - 08.578 And so we were thinking about

01:04 - 11.914 interpreting, native voices

01:04 - 15.811 and thinking about, you know, the way that they talk about it intimately.

01:04 - 19.731 Or finally, is that some way, and I guess

01:04 - 24.327 one way change the way that we see Penn, it's more like a colonizer.

01:04 - 29.098 And also, does that change, maybe the way that we look at or interpret new sources?

01:04 - 33.002 It is interesting to me how,

01:04 - 37.049 and, you know, he he's only and has been he twice.

01:04 - 37.417 Right.

01:04 - 40.443 And he leaves the second time in 1701

01:04 - 43.922 and but his memory,

01:04 - 46.949 you know, he becomes sacred to the memory of both native,

01:04 - 52.481 native peoples and, of course, his heirs and Quakers in Pennsylvania.

01:04 - 53.615 To everybody.

01:04 - 58.527 Everybody can advance their position by invoking the memory of William Penn.

01:05 - 04.142 And it seems to me that in his lifetime, you know,

01:05 - 08.230 he didn't actually write that much about native peoples.

01:05 - 10.449 I you know,

01:05 - 14.970 I teach a seminar, a senior seminar on, Pennsylvanians, Indians.

01:05 - 17.890 And, you know, every every time I do it, I have a student or two

01:05 - 20.042 who wants to work on William Penn and the Indians.

01:05 - 23.195 Like, in fact, there's actually not that much there, you know, and

01:05 - 26.415 so it is interesting how his memory becomes

01:05 - 31.928 so important to the construction of, diplomacy in particular,

01:05 - 36.299 in, in Pennsylvania during the 18th century.

01:05 - 40.862 And I think that's part

01:05 - 44.740 of what we might call the legend or the mythology of,

01:05 - 48.477 of the Peaceable Kingdom.

01:05 - 51.547 Okay, Jay.

01:05 - 53.526 Thank you

01:05 - 57.336 guys for discussing, this question, I guess, is geared towards Sarah and,

01:05 - 00.215 as well,

01:06 - 01.950 I'm, legally, I'm here

01:06 - 05.811 to ask about the black boys and and actually, actually,

01:06 - 09.699 I'm here to talk about the black boys panel tomorrow with Brandon and Chris.

01:06 - 12.828 Similarly to was there,

01:06 - 16.138 my my questions about, this kind of thing

01:06 - 19.768 larger than history.

01:06 - 22.795 The Black Boys, Aaron Selleck's recent book about,

01:06 - 26.132 humor and American history,

01:06 - 29.919 characterizes the black boys of, this kind of Indian burlesque,

01:06 - 34.199 this phrase thinking about, like, the the Tea Party, right, with the colonists

01:06 - 37.002 dressed up as, like Mohawk, like, you know, practically dressed up.

01:06 - 39.304 Dressed up like Batman.

01:06 - 42.415 But from what I'm hearing, sounds like maybe they're,

01:06 - 47.486 they're not dressing up like Indians or dressing up like protesters in Europe.

01:06 - 50.639 So curious where you think that fit into that?

01:06 - 54.069 Is it one or the other? Is the mix?

01:06 - 56.846 What, what would you. Yeah.

01:06 - 59.375 I think I

01:06 - 02.401 lean more on the, the European side of that.

01:07 - 06.031 I know they're, they're blackening their faces,

01:07 - 08.133 which is also happening in Ireland.

01:07 - 11.160 The white boys actually are also blackening their faces,

01:07 - 14.947 which appears to be quite, a European tradition.

01:07 - 19.685 But I do know that there's a lot of I know,

01:07 - 22.748 like, Jim Smith spent time in captivity, and that's

01:07 - 25.775 also coloring what he's doing.

01:07 - 27.519 So probably somewhere in the middle.

01:07 - 30.546 But I'm hoping it's the answering your question,

01:07 - 33.816 but probably more on the European side.

01:07 - 38.070 Anybody ever see an alien uprising?

01:07 - 40.198 I love that movie.

01:07 - 42.601 John Wayne plays James Smith.

01:07 - 44.169 Anyway.

01:07 - 47.072 Yes. Paul, please,

01:07 - 50.192 just play with the idea of like of

01:07 - 54.396 of looking at Pennsylvania in the revolutionary era

01:07 - 57.840 as being foreshadowing to the ethnic cleansing in the 19th century,

01:07 - 00.719 which I I've been thinking the same thing,

01:08 - 02.287 but I'm thinking about the 19th century,

01:08 - 04.322 and there's so many things that happen there

01:08 - 05.741 that aren't happening in Pennsylvania.

01:08 - 10.829 The revolutionary think Jefferson starts the idea of telling his character

01:08 - 14.766 a governess, to lure them in a debt to the lop off their debt with the Saxons,

01:08 - 18.253 their lands, and then, of course, very quickly with the treaties that come

01:08 - 22.014 right after that, the annuity schemes of controlling people and annuities,

01:08 - 25.410 you know, and then, you know, and more and more settler

01:08 - 28.437 colonialism, which I think is a broad definition throughout.

01:08 - 33.843 But I wonder if what's happening in Pennsylvania in the 1760s and 70s,

01:08 - 38.824 as they're just kind of coming to the the ethnic

01:08 - 41.817 cleansing that only other colonies have been doing for a century. The,

01:08 - 45.013 if we're seeing a freak,

01:08 - 48.624 you know, rather than just a foreshadow where they're catching up,

01:08 - 51.811 they're like, hey, we've got to see what what these other folks are doing.

01:08 - 54.222 And and we're seeing something different.

01:08 - 57.275 So this isn't anything that's particularly innovative or anything.

01:08 - 01.713 They're late to the party of, of, of what's been going on in New England

01:09 - 05.624 and say, Virginia, the one difference there that is

01:09 - 08.677 worth noting, of course, is, you know, after the,

01:09 - 13.149 war, King Philip's War and Connecticut and Massachusetts,

01:09 - 17.736 they are establishing what in essence become reservations, right?

01:09 - 20.799 They are giving, you know, demarcating

01:09 - 24.360 certain land that will be Indian territory there on out.

01:09 - 26.705 Same is going on in Virginia.

01:09 - 29.291 And we don't see that happening in Pennsylvania.

01:09 - 30.315 Right? I mean,

01:09 - 34.412 you know, the Penn family, when it is in control of the colony,

01:09 - 38.807 is establishing these, well, the kind of stoker manor right here.

01:09 - 41.877 This is land for you all to live on now,

01:09 - 46.982 but there is no a tent, as far as I know, by the revolutionary.

01:09 - 50.312 Pennsylvania government to establish any kind of reservations.

01:09 - 51.180 Right.

01:09 - 52.964 And so that does seem something.

01:09 - 54.699 Do you know, different?

01:09 - 57.726 You know, some correlate.

01:09 - 00.989 Well in the sense that,

01:10 - 04.884 Pennsylvania, there is not following precedent set by New England or others.

01:10 - 08.153 Yeah, yeah, that's that's the distinction I.

01:11 - 07.389 Think that's a lot of the, you know, back country studies

01:11 - 11.376 even though Daniel Bard here, you know where.

01:11 - 12.061 Yeah.

01:11 - 17.856 What's defining this is was the inability of any kind of authority,

01:11 - 21.844 colonial government or imperial officials

01:11 - 26.465 to punish, perpetrate orders of violence against Indians.

01:11 - 29.444 So, yeah, I said

01:11 - 32.454 I think it's a very relevant observation. And.

01:11 - 37.176 I can give us just.

01:11 - 41.013 The settlers,

01:11 - 42.391 yeah.

01:11 - 45.727 Although, you know, there's there is plenty of kind of mountainous

01:11 - 49.898 terrain in Pennsylvania that was not particularly attractive

01:11 - 54.035 as agricultural land, you know, and that's kind of what happened in these other

01:11 - 57.746 colonies is a less desirable land designated as is India.

01:11 - 02.610 Okay. Yep.

01:12 - 07.072 I. And I, I,

01:12 - 13.028 I and I guess, at in the air

01:12 - 16.682 for the report I'm working on.

01:12 - 22.621 Trying to figure that,

01:12 - 26.775 in, in what happened in that other,

01:12 - 32.698 but strictly for the for.

01:12 - 38.971 Very,

01:12 - 42.207 the French forces that.

01:12 - 45.904 I think that I would

01:12 - 51.683 read it and we have a lot of paper apply and they got

01:12 - 55.714 they haven't had in one place

01:12 - 58.957 in time for, you know, a long time.

01:13 - 01.986 Gone by,

01:13 - 05.013 famously, and so,

01:13 - 08.634 you know, the Mennonites and other German,

01:13 - 13.415 farmers who I can't

01:13 - 16.000 and they are part of that.

01:13 - 19.545 I mean, and even all of the group,

01:13 - 26.552 and and there are things there in any way

01:13 - 30.239 and so, you know, and equal opportunity.

01:13 - 35.377 For, I,

01:13 - 39.491 and have probably have

01:13 - 41.643 decades long history,

01:13 - 44.670 and then by the time,

01:13 - 47.399 after that,

01:13 - 50.235 I think most people in the land, very few

01:13 - 53.879 got very involved with this year anymore.

01:13 - 57.599 So the first year kind of came back.

01:13 - 02.888 To, And that.

01:14 - 09.695 I mean, I think.

01:14 - 12.540 I think I like that idea.

01:14 - 17.278 I like the idea of the frontier, like the spirit of the frontier.

01:14 - 22.934 I know, as I'm kind of working towards hopefully finishing the dissertation soon.

01:14 - 26.821 I've been thinking a lot about, like this, this spirit of Paxton.

01:14 - 27.306 Like what?

01:14 - 30.241 The spirit of the frontier is.

01:14 - 31.110 And I like that.

01:14 - 34.112 I like that characterization of, like,

01:14 - 37.706 Lancaster has kind of outgrown that identity a little bit.

01:14 - 41.910 But then the Paxton Boys pull it back into this

01:14 - 44.913 fringe frontier fringe, I don't know,

01:14 - 50.228 so I don't know if I'm answering a question, but I think you're,

01:14 - 54.532 you're raising, like, an interesting way to look at it that I appreciate it.

01:14 - 00.062 Doesn't Lancaster have this kind of very ill defined Western border

01:15 - 03.575 for the period we're talking about here?

01:15 - 05.910 It's a very evocative word.

01:15 - 12.400 And it, you know, we've been talking about for like, yeah.

01:15 - 15.427 Yeah, very, you know,

01:15 - 18.389 all right.

01:15 - 20.942 Yeah. And so,

01:15 - 22.810 yeah, you're

01:15 - 25.837 right.

01:15 - 26.866 Yeah.

01:15 - 29.167 Right. Yeah.

01:15 - 32.678 Yeah, I would say maybe that I.

01:15 - 36.824 Yeah, yeah,

01:15 - 40.118 I just, I, I'm thinking of the, you know, Scots-Irish,

01:15 - 44.999 squatters, you know, in the Valley are living a very, very different life

01:15 - 48.152 than, say, these German farmers in the eastern

01:15 - 52.264 part of the colony, you know, and I think that makes a big difference.

01:15 - 56.561 It's also a, you know,

01:15 - 00.038 a place of transients and that people are moving in

01:16 - 04.152 and then moving out, you know, the great wagon road and all that.

01:16 - 06.104 And I find that interesting.

01:16 - 10.015 And maybe that gives it kind of a prolonged frontier character.

01:16 - 13.811 And I wonder, like, who is who is calling themselves

01:16 - 17.506 frontier and who is not in, in within Lancaster.

01:16 - 17.850 Yeah.

01:16 - 20.876 You know, as you said, like the Scots-Irish versus the German.

01:16 - 24.822 But I think it's a really interesting like,

01:16 - 28.927 I mean, that's kind of where I think Pat Sparrow's first book comes in.

01:16 - 30.662 You know, talking about frontier is a

01:16 - 34.222 is a word that's used by these ethnically, religiously diverse people

01:16 - 37.235 to kind of identify a common interest when they're petitioning

01:16 - 41.196 for better defenses, you know, and, and that sort of thing.

01:16 - 43.425 Okay.

01:16 - 48.337 And I0301 which means we are a minute past our allotted time.

01:16 - 50.999 So let's give our speakers a hand.

01:16 - 52.174 And if you have questions.