Frontier Indiana

Cayton's graceful, arresting narrative is grounded in primary and secondary sources, including classics by Emma Lou Thornbrough and Bernard Knollenberg, James Madison's The Indiana Way (CH, Jan'87), and new studies from such scholars as Richard White and Gregory Evans Dowd. Spanning 1700--1850 in ten chapters and an epilogue, Cayton's first-rate study interprets the successive worlds of the Miami (1700--1754), then of individuals whose experiences epitomized unfolding chapters of Indiana frontier history. With a keen ear for the revealing anecdote and apt quotation, the author treats the world of George Croghan (1750--1777); the village of Vincennes (1765--1777); the milieus of George Rogers Clark (1778--1787), Josiah Harmar, and John Francis Hamtramck (1787--1790); Little Turtle (1790--1795); Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison (wife of William Henry Harrison, 1795--1810); Tenskwatawa (1795--1811); Jonathan Jennings (1800--1816); and the end of the frontier (1816--1850). Along the way readers discover figures such as John and William Conner, the early rivalry between Centerville and Richmond, an explanation of why Indiana remained a state of small towns and farms until the latter half of the 20th century, and the basis for understanding one of the more interesting states of the Union. Fine illustrations, maps. All levels.D. W./P>--D. W. Steeples, Mercer University"Choice" (01/01/1997)