The Borderland of Fear: Vincennes, Prophetstown, and the Invasion of the Miami Homeland

• Published in: Journal of Southern History Vol. 84; no. 1; pp. 148 - 149
• Main Author: Marsh, Dawn G
• Format: Book Review Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Houston Southern Historical Association 01-02-2018
• Subjects: American history; Harrison, William Henry (1773-1841); Historical reenactments; Military engagements; Nationalism; Native North Americans; Politics; Sovereignty; Towns; Tippecanoe County Indiana; Indiana; United States > US; Ohio River
• ISSN: 0022-4642; 2325-6893
• DOI: 10.1353/soh.2018.0010

Celebrants are invited to experience their state' s valiant past as reenactors play out their interpretations of life in a French trading fort or of fife-playing, costumed militiamen bravely marching from the burned cabins of an imagined Prophetstown in 1811. The author begins his study by asking readers to look "east from Miami country" and consider the western Ohio River Valley as a borderland wherein power was contested between Native and non-Native peoples and where the Miami people expressed their sovereignty beyond the more easily recognized boundaries of nation, state, and empire. The changing circumstances of the Miami people and their decentralized political culture are presented in a nuanced interpretation that foils any attempt to dismiss Native leaders such as Little Turtle and Pacanne as agents of accommodation in the face of inevitable American expansion.