Forging a Bluegrass Commonwealth: The Kentucky Statehood Movement and the Politics of the Trans-Appalachian West, 1783–1792

In 1893 historian Frederick Jackson Turner first presented his frontier thesis to a group of historians at the World’s Columbian Exposition, a fair honoring the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ expedition, in Chicago, Illinois. Since then, scholars have long debated the role that the frontier played in shaping the development of the United States. The Kentucky statehood movement emerged at a critical juncture in the early republic’s history, and, when viewed in a transatlantic context, becomes much more important to the development of the United States and larger Atlantic world than what has generally been recognized. Kentuckians found themselves at the forefront of a multifaceted struggle between the United States and Europe’s most powerful empires for control of the trans-Appalachian West. The manner in which Kentuckians interpreted and responded to the realities of daily life in the region shaped the foreign and domestic agendas of the developing United States and influenced the actions of foreign political representatives. This analysis of the Kentucky statehood movement, framed by the conventions themselves, reveals how Kentucky’s political leaders were shaped by, and often times influenced, national and international politics while carefully attending to their own local political agendas

Keeping the republic: Ideology and the diplomacy of John Adams, James Madison and John Quincy Adams

This dissertation explores the extent to which the political ideology that formed the basis for the American republic shaped American diplomacy, using John Adams, James Madison and John Quincy Adams as case studies. American statesmen drew on a variety of sources for republican principles of diplomacy. The law of nations and the Scottish political economists supplied the ideas of an international balance of power and freedom of trade. English writers of the Opposition Whig school provided concepts such as political separation from Europe, reliance on a navy for defense, abhorrence of a standing army and, indirectly, the belief that the United States could use its economic power to secure its diplomatic goals.;John Adams began his career with a high degree of confidence in the virtue of the American people and the coercive power of American trade. He combined a classical martial ethic with an Opposition whig strategic sense. Adams\u27s experience in Europe disproved these beliefs, and as president he fell back on the republican realpolitik, based on naval power and separation from Europe, suggested by the Opposition Whig school.;James Madison never held out a classical model of virtue and never lost faith in the coercive power of American commerce. His combination of political economy with Opposition thought led him to reject both an army and a navy as monarchical tools of diplomacy. He saw the Constitution as a vehicle for harnessing American economic power. Madison\u27s conception of a republican diplomacy led him, as secretary of state and president, to rely on the Embargo and similar economic measures.;John Quincy Adams combined republican realpolitik with a sense of Christian purpose and saw American government and diplomacy as a vehicle for moral improvement. Adams\u27s republic rested on a continental union and a diplomacy directed against European colonization, as a manifestation of monarchy. Non-colonization included removing Spain as a neighbor in North America, preventing European political encroachment in the Western Hemisphere, and securing a hemisphere-wide consensus on neutral rights. as a congressman and critic of slavery-driven expansion, Adams demonstrated the persistence of Opposition Whig thought in American politics

Little Tallassee: a Creek Indian colonial town

This dissertation explores the role of the Upper Creek Indian town of Little Tallassee in Creek History, beginning with the town’s origins during the 1740s and 1750s and ending with its decline in the late 1780s and early 1790s. Little Tallassee is a unique place as it was a product of a colonial encounter and originated as a center of Euro-exchange and Atlantic trade. Yet under the leadership of headman and warrior Emistisiguo, Little Tallassee evolved into a prominent Creek town that saw the creation of a formal town structure as well as a ceremonial space in which to conduct international diplomacy and manage trade. The vast majority of American Indian histories of the Native South have attached Little Tallassee’s identity to its most notable resident, Alexander McGillivray, a mixed-ancestry Creek and arguably one of the most notable historical figures to emerge out of the American Southeast. Contrary to existing historiography, I argue that Alexander McGillivray was first and foremost a trader who held little political authority within Creek society. An examination of the town’s history reveals Emistisiguo to have been the individual most responsible for Little Tallassee’s prominence as a Creek town within Creek society. McGillivray’s activities actually contributed to the town’s subsequent decline. Placing Little Tallassee at the forefront of Creek and colonial American historiography challenges the current scholarship on Alexander McGillivray’s power and authority and restores agency to Creek Indians at the local level in their own domestic and foreign affairs. Scholars have cast their gaze far too long at western-educated mestizos and cultural brokers like Alexander McGillivray, and as a result have obscured other Native architects of diplomacy and trade who dominated the economic and social realms of Indian societies throughout the eighteenth century. By restoring credit to Emistisiguo as the engineer behind the transformation of Little Tallassee from a mere trading post to a leading Upper Creek town and center of diplomacy, this dissertation addresses this significant oversight in Creek and Southeastern Indian historiography

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend: George Washington and France

This thesis looks at how George Washington was able to overcome his personal animosity towards France and ally himself with them during the American Revolution. This animosity originates with Washington’s early interactions with the French during the French and Indian War. It examines how the events during Washington first miliary mission and journey to Fort Le Boeuf, his first military conflict and surrender at Jumonville Glenn, and his service under General Braddock all helped develop that animosity. However, the overcoming of these early negative feelings for Washington was the culmination of three key factors. The first major guiding force was Washington’s pragmatic need for external aid. The second was the positive behavior and attitudes of Lafayette and Duportial. The final reason was that Washington’s personal beliefs and paradigm were influenced by the Enlightenment which caused him to rethink his views of France. Had Washington not been able to fight alongside the French, the American Revolution might have ended differently. His acceptance of this alliance is a core causality in the emergence of the United States of America

The Dispute Between the Creek Nation and the State of Georgia: United States Diplomacy in the Formation of the Federal Union, 1784-1790

During George Washington\u27s first presidential term, Federal authorities faced the challenging task of defining what the new republic meant to themselves, their constituents and diverse populations on both sides of the United States\u27s border with the Indian nations. The Constitution of 1787 had created a plan for government; the task of Federal officials was to make that plan a concrete reality, in the face of opposition from entrenched political and economic interests that neither trusted nor favored the new government in New York City. The most pressing domestic task facing the new government was to define the relationship between the Federal union and the several states, who had yielded their sovereignty only grudgingly. The process of defining federalism involved both internal and external facets, as the United States interacted with nations beyond its borders, as well as the Indian tribes within the borders as defined by the Treaty of Paris (1783). The internal facet involved the exercise of diplomacy toward the Indians in the same manner that U.S. diplomats exercised their mission toward European powers. One notable incident in the diplomatic effort to assert Federal control over Americans\u27s relations with the Indians involved the United States\u27s involvement in an intractable dispute between the Creek Nation and the State of Georgia. This dispute, which revolved around the validity of cessions of land that the Georgians claimed the Creeks had made in the mid-1780s, would create the Federal govenment\u27s role as the hegemon of peace and stability on the southwestern borderland in the early 1790s. The ultimate failure of the United States to impose a stable peace in Georgia and Alabama laid the foundations for the dominant role that the Federal government would play in white Americans\u27s relations with their Indian neighbors. This study relies heavily on primary sources, including reports and correspondence of U.S. and Georgia state officials, to define the processes by which the Creeks and Georgians futilely tried to resolve their dispute by their own efforts, and how the U.S. became embroiled in that dispute

Alexander Hamilton\u27s Florida Policy

Alexander Hamilton had a greater interest in Florida and spoke of it more often than any other prominent American of his period. While still living in the West Indies, he worked for Beckman and Cruger at Christiansed, and during a part of that time he was in charge of their commercial activities. Whenever he looked at a map of North America, which he often did in the course of his activities, he saw first of all the peninsula of Florida pointing out toward his homeland. Throughout his life Hamilton was aware of the importance of Florida in the future of the United States

The emergence and decline of the Delaware Indian nation in western Pennsylvania and the Ohio country, 1730--1795

Many past and current generations of historians, anthropologists, and literary writers have acknowledged the existence of a Delaware Indian nation. They, however, have failed to thoroughly understand or address the historical and cultural dynamics that contributed to both the formation and quick decline of this Indian nation. This multidisciplinary study includes the oral traditions and oratory of Delaware Indians, the observances of Moravian missionaries and colonial-revolutionary officials, and contemporary anthropological and historical sources, to construct the building of the Delaware nation during the eighteenth century.;Once decentralized and living in the Delaware River watershed, three phratries or animal tribes (Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf) of Delawares, in response to their unfair treatment at the hands of the Pennsylvania-Iroquois alliance of 1732, moved west to the Allegheny Valley of western Pennsylvania and eventually across the Ohio River into the Muskingum River valley. Western Delawares developed a sense of common cause and weathered the turmoil of imperial conflict between the French and British during the Seven Years\u27 War in western Pennsylvania. A regional identity was greatly enhanced when western Delawares by 1765 separated themselves politically from their eastern kin who remained on the Susquehanna.;This dissertation also considers the creation of a National Council or Lupwaaeenoawuk, the influence of Moravian missionaries, and the importance of visionary leaders, such as Tamaqua, White Eyes, and Captain Pipe---three important factors, imperative to the story of Delaware centralization and nationhood in the Ohio. The stability of a lasting political Delaware nation, however, was undermined by the stress of factionalism in the Great Council as the American Revolution divided Delaware leaders in 1780.;This study will also examine the processes, which led to the fractured state of the Delawares after Washington\u27s Indian War in the Old Northwest Territory and the subsequent Treaty of Greenville that followed in 1795. The story of the Delawares from 1730-1795 demonstrates a dramatic and arduous struggle for autonomy, identity, and political union. In the end, however, the Delaware nation became weakened and broken, driven from the Ohio and forced to migrate west once again