The Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes, 1754-1814

by David Curtis Skaggs (Editor), Larry L. Nelson (Editor)

The Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes contains twenty essays concerning not only military and naval operations, but also the political, economic, social, and cultural interactions of individuals and groups during the struggle to control the great freshwater lakes and rivers between the Ohio Valley and the Canadian Shield.

Genres: War

656 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

An historian specializing in colonial America and the early Republic, David Curtis Skaggs, Jr is professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of papers from an academic conference organized around the central premise that for 60 years, between the beginning of the French & Indian War in 1754 and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 that ended the War of 1812 (ok so the Battle of New Orleans was fought in 1815 before news of the treaty reached the opposing forces)that there was 60 years of war for the control of the Great Lakes and the Ohio River valley that at various times involved the French, British, Americans and Indians.

This is history that's largely been overlooked and it's a lot more complex than is generally known. The family relationships that resulted from French fur traders marrying or living with Indian women from prominent Indian families controlled the fur trade, even after the end of the French & Indian War. Those relationships benefited both the Indian tribes and the fur traders. Rival fur traders invading their territories were often murdered.

One of the strengths of this book is the number of essays that explore the complexities of the interactions of the Indian tribes with the French, the British and the Americans, relations between different Indian tribes or within the Iroquois Confederacy. Iroquois who settled in Ontario (Upper Canada as it was known at the time) after the American Revolution and Iroquois on reservations in New York found themselves in a difficult spot when the War of 1812 started.

There's an essay about Quaker missionaries to the Seneca, Shawnee and other tribes. An essay delves into one of the more shameful episodes during this period, the 1782 Gnadenhutten massacre where peaceful Delaware Indians who were converted by Moravian missionaries were massacred by white settlers. During this same period, settlers in western Pennsylvania were in revolt against the Continental Army at Fort Pitt.

Of local interest is a history of early Detroit fortifications between its founding by Cadillac in 1701 and 1826. There's an interesting article on early attempts to improve navigation on the Mohawk River corridor and connections to Lake Ontario at Oswego. There's also a good study of the struggle for naval control of Lakes Erie & Ontario during the War of 1812 and how the U.S. Navy had to strip its ocean cruising ships, near shore flotillas and shore batteries of sailors, marines and cannon in order to build fleets on Lakes Erie & Ontario. The U.S. controlled Lake Erie after the Battle of Lake Erie but the U.S. was fortunate to reach a stalemate with the British on Lake Ontario by the end of the war because the U.S. couldn't keep up with the British ability to build and man ships on Lake Ontario.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Great Lakes region.