“The Sweets of an Indian Trade”: Authority, Violence, and the Construction of Indian Policy on the Mid-Atlantic Frontier, 1754–1768

ABSTRACT The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in 1754 created a crisis in British Native American diplomacy as colonial leaders clashed with their imperial counterparts over the question of who had authority to negotiate with native groups throughout the mid-Atlantic frontier. However, the emergence of violent extralegal groups like the Paxton Boys and the Black Boys throughout the mid-1760s marked the entrance of frontier settlers into this ongoing conflict over Native American diplomacy. Although colonial leaders locked horns with imperial leaders as they each claimed the authority to negotiate with native groups on their own terms, a consensus emerged that trade with Native Americans was the best diplomatic tool to broker peace. Meanwhile, as backcountry inhabitants grew increasingly disillusioned with the Indian policies created by colonial and imperial elites, they turned to violence to express their own Native American policies. The emergence of groups such as the Paxton Boys and the Black Boys demonstrate the deeply contested visions of authority and legitimacy throughout the mid-eighteenth century as imperial leaders, provincial politicians, and backcountry settlers all sought to claim the authority to determine Indian policy and regulate a Native American trade.