Clearing Iroquoia: New York's Land Grab in the 1779 Campaigns of the American Revolution

In 1778, George Washington, Philip Schuyler, army officers, and New York officials began planning invasions against Iroquoia, the homeland of the Haudenosaunee and several other allied Indigenous nations. This invasion was one of the largest American offensives of the Revolutionary War, curated to punish the Haudenosaunee for raids against frontier settlements in New York and Pennsylvania. However, the resulting 1779 campaigns of Goose Van Schaick, Daniel Brodhead, and Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton were not simple retaliation. Clearing Iroquoia: New York’s Land Grab in the 1779 Campaigns of the American Revolution by Travis M. Bowman and Matthew A. Zembo critically examines archival materials from these campaigns to investigate the driving force behind the campaigns: removal. Through their research, Bowman and Zembo explore how colonial leaders ignored peace efforts and how George Washington ordered his officers to do the same – prioritizing the destruction of Iroquoia and placing native peoples at the lower end of a racial hierarchy to justify their actions. Using letters, journals, speeches, and reports, this book brings the buried truths to light, exploring these series of coordinated attacks that were designed to destroy Haudenosaunee political cohesion, clear the Indigenous population from the land, and replace it with a non-Indigenous one.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Michael Galban Acknowledgments Introduction: Clearing the Land Chapter 1: The Haudenosaunee and Colonizing New York Chapter 2: Dunmore’s War: 1774 Chapter 3: The Haudenosaunee and the New Nation Chapter 4: Picking Sides: Phillip Schuyler and the Failed Effort at Neutrality Chapter 5: The Cherokee War: War of Extirpation Chapter 6: Schuyler’s Ultimatum: Declaring Enemies Chapter 7: War Comes to the Valley, Again: 1778 Chapter 8: Retaliation and Escalation on the Frontier Chapter 9: The New York Elite: Land and Bread Chapter 10: Laying the Plans Chapter 11: Schuyler Strikes First: The Destruction of Onondaga Chapter 12: Iroquoia Invaded Chapter 13: Coveting the Land While Destroying its Bounty Chapter 14: Winter at Niagara: Starving in the Snow Chapter 15: Suing for Peace Chapter 16: Redrawing the Map of New York Chapter 17: Selling out the Haudenosaunee Chapter 18: Surviving the Destruction: The Smaller Kettle and Canoe Chapter 19: On Extirpation Epilogue Appendix: Sexual Violence Bibliography About the Authors

About the Author :
Travis M. Bowman is the head of museum collections for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation’s Bureau of Historic Sites. Matthew A. Zembo is associate professor of history and military history at Hudson Valley Community College and instructor of American history at Bard Early College.

Review :
The work introduces and addresses the multiple perspectives of, and divisions sown between, the Six Nations as they were impacted by the warring armies who fought for control for their ancestral lands… [Bowman] and Zembo effectively highlight powerful details that position these campaigns as early examples of the young nation’s 'Manifest Destiny' ideology and its results. Clearing Iroquoia recovers the hard truths and enduring importance of the American invasion and dispossession of the Haudenosaunee homeland. Behind the beauty of the Finger Lakes farmlands today, lies a great historical tragedy for Native peoples driven by the American Revolution and ruthless land speculators. This book offers a fresh perspective on the Sullivan-Clinton campaign, emphasizing its place in the broader history of American settler colonialism. Centering the theme of Haudenosaunee dispossession, Bowman and Zembo ground their findings in careful readings of an extensive array of primary sources to demonstrate how the campaign’s objectives extended beyond retaliation for prior acts of Haudenosaunee aggression and was instead an outright extirpation of Haudenosaunee people from their ancestral homelands. A gripping retelling of the Sullivan Campaign of 1779 that places Haudenosaunee voices and the manipulations of New York elite at the center of the story. This book offers a fascinating new look at how hunger for Native American land shaped the Revolutionary War in New York and beyond. Bowman and Zembo have produced a readable and innovative account of the motivations for Revolutionary-era American invasions of the Haudenosaunee homelands. They usefully describe Dunmore’s War and the Cherokee War to show precedent for the methods and aims of the 1779 Van Schaick and Sullivan Expeditions. Further, they make the case that the underlying concern of the American invaders was not to punish enemies or protect the frontier, but to ensure that American settlers?New Yorkers in particular?gained control of the land of the Six Nations. The authors amply document that Haudenosaunee land was at the center of New York’s aspirations, both before and after the invasions of 1779.