“Circumstances of such atrocity:” Violence and Federal Authority in the Lower Ohio Valley Borderlands at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

The following thesis examines the murder of three Lenape (Indigenous people commonly called Delaware) in 1797 in what is now southern Indiana. Two men and one woman were killed by three Euro-American settlers residing in central Kentucky. The murder became an issue in the negotiations of treaties with various Indigenous Nations in the early years of the Indiana Territory in 1800. The analysis includes the economic and geographical factors that brought the murderers and those murdered together. There is particular focus on the gendered economic roles of Indigenous women in the Ohio Valley and the role of lower-class Euro-American settlers in Kentucky. The paper also examines the layered sovereignties and shifting imperial boundaries during the period that complicated the attempt to prosecute the murderers. Federal officials trying to bring justice or advance imperial agendas did not enjoy the authority necessary to do either smoothly. Illustrated in the thesis is the transition, in Ohio Valley, from a physically violent “frontier” settler economy, which understood physically plundering Indigenous wealth as a legitimate endeavor. The transition from a powerful Indigenous economy, justice, and politics to a system of exploitation dominated by the government and predatory traders created conditions for revolution among Lenape and other Indigenous communities in Indiana.

The narrative approach to the analysis relies on the close reading of primary source material mostly generated by federal officials and court documents as they attempt to capture and try the three Euro-American murderers. To construct a rich context of geography, environment, politics, and economy the thesis draws on recent scholarship in both Indigenous and borderlands history.