Frontier Indiana - Paperback

by Andrew R. L. Cayton (Author)

Frontier Indiana

Andrew R. L. Cayton

"The research and scholarship that went into the work are excellent; so good, in fact, that the book should be on the required text list for all Transappalachian frontier courses." --History

Cayton's lively new history of the frontier period in Indiana puts the focus on people, on how they lived, how they viewed their world, and what motivated them. Here are the stories of Sieur de Vincennes, John Francis Hamtramck, Little Turtle, Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, Tenskwatawa, Calvin Fletcher--along with many more familiar (and not so familiar) early Hoosiers.

Sales territory is worldwide
A History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier
1996; 360 pages, 20 b&w photos, 2 maps, index, 6 x 9
cloth0-253-33048-3$39.95 L / 28.50
paper0-253-21217-0$18.95 t / 13.50

Back Jacket

Most history concentrates on the broad sweep of events, battles and political decisions, economic advance or decline, landmark issues and events, and the people who lived and made these events tend to be lost in the big picture. Cayton's lively new history of the frontier period in Indiana puts the focus on people, on how they lived, how they viewed their world, and what motivated them. Here are the stories of Jean-Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes; George Croghan, the ultimate frontier entrepreneur; the world as seen by George Rogers Clark; Josiah Hamar and John Francis Hamtramck; Little Turtle; Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison and William Henry Harrison; Tenskwatawa; Jonathan Jennings; Calvin Fletcher; and many others. Focusing his account on these and other representative individuals, Cayton retells the story of Indiana's settlement in a human and compelling narrative which makes the experience of exploration and settlement real and exciting. Here is a book that will appeal to the general reader and scholar alike while going a long way to reinfusing our understanding of history and the historical process with the breath of life itself.

Author Biography

Andrew R. L. Cayton is Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is author of The Frontier Republic: Ideology and Politics in Ohio Country, 1780-1825 and, with Peter S. Onuf, The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region.