Class Year
2026
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Western Pennsylvania was one of the earliest frontiers in US history, but is often overlooked and oversimplified. The frontier just west of the Appalachian Mountains was a complicated place of settler and Native American interaction, varied permanent settlement, and wilderness. The journal and letters of Major Ebenezer Denny show a complicated frontier of danger, wilderness, and chaos that is often not seen within historical views of the region. Through Denny and other Western Pennsylvania settlers, this paper complicates the common view of the Western Pennsylvania as a simply and quickly colonized region by showing the area as an unsettled frontier with ambiguous power relations and more interaction with Native Americans after the frontier supposedly had moved farther west.
Recommended Citation
Aaron, Michael J.
(2026)
"Little Better Than One of the Savages,"
The Gettysburg Historical Journal: Vol. 25, Article 5.
Available at:
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ghj/vol25/iss1/5