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He also makes the narrative choice to tell the story of the pioneers through several specific people, which lends the book a more personal and intimate feel. The stories he tells also center mostly around the male settlers, which he explains in the text: McCullough's book is told from the point of view of the pioneers, of course, and doesn't focus much on the Native Americans whom they displaced. military ensued hundreds would die before the Treaty of Greenville, which further displaced the local tribes, was signed in 1795.
SETTLERS 3 PIONEERS ONLY TO CARRIERS SERIES
A series of battles between the Native Americans and the U.S. Several tribes of Native Americans, including the Delawares and Wyandots, called the Northwest Territory home, and while they initially greeted the New Englanders, relations between the two groups quickly strained. Obviously, the pioneers weren't "settling" an unoccupied land. McCullough recounts the first voyage by New Englanders to the Northwest Territory beautifully, detailing the sometimes difficult but ultimately successful trip to what's now Marietta, Ohio: "As long and arduous as was so much of the journey, there had been no loss of life, nor, as plainly evident, no loss of spirit." Manasseh Cutler, citing obligations at home, declined to join the settlers, but his 19-year-old son, Jervis, did. Not long after, the first pioneers set out to the new territory. The resulting ordinance, McCullough writes, "stands alongside the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence as a bold assertion of the rights of the individual." The anti-slavery language in the ordinance had been far from a sure thing, and Cutler had lobbied hard for its inclusion. The Pioneers begins with the story of a man named Manasseh Cutler, a New England pastor who played a key role in the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which created the Northwest Territory and prohibited slavery anywhere within it. It's a fascinating look at a chapter in American history that's been somewhat neglected in the country's popular imagination. That's the case with his latest book, The Pioneers, which tells the story of the 17th- and 18th-century settlers who set out to start lives in the Northwest Territory, the region of the country that is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and much of the Upper Midwest. Occasionally, though, he delves into the lives of historically significant people whose names likely aren't familiar to most Americans. Truman, John Adams and the Wright Brothers have all been subjects of his meticulously researched volumes. How?ĭavid McCullough is best known to most readers for his popular biographies of some of the most prominent names in American history - Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Pioneers Subtitle The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Author David McCullough