Tales of early frontier violence enthralled readers

During the 17th and 18th centuries, violence involving settlers and Indigenous people in colonial American border towns were frequent occurrences.

Hundreds of narratives describing these events appeared in print. Since print media was solely under the purview of the settlers, these accounts tended to be one-sided versions of events which used language that would cause consternation among readers today.

Among these incidents was one in 1779, during the American Revolutionary War, in which General John Sullivan “drove the Five Nations” from the Susquehanna River toward Niagara, while at the same time burning Indigenous settlements and stealing their provisions.

This attack by Sullivan, which largely depopulated the area of its Indigenous inhabitants, was carried out because the “Five Nati