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Archive for the ‘beans’ Category

This is a continuation of the chapter, “Shawnee Culture and the Ceremonialism of Violence” from the Ph.D dissertation of John M. Boback: Indian Warfare, Household Competency, and the Settlement of the Western Virginia Frontier, 1749 to 1794. The first portion of that chapter, “The Shawnee: their septs, their chiefs and their women”, can be read [...]

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It would be difficult to over-emphasise the importance of corn on the Virginia frontier — or any American frontier, for that matter.   One indication of its central role in the life of the trans-Allegheney pioneers is how often in their daily language references to corn were used to mark the passing of the seasons: Spring was corn-planting [...]

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It all begins peacefully enough on a mild October morning, with Squire Miller and Mistress Rebecca picking beans in the field outside the fort. Little do they suspect that the fearsome Shawnee Two Hawks and his band are skulking up through the forest only yards away! At just the right moment, when his intended victims have their backs [...]

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Fall on the old Virginia frontier was, above all, a season of preparation against the coming Winter. The foundation of the cabin would be banked against the cold wind with a thick matting of cornstalks and pumpkin vines, or straw if they had it, or even banked with earth. And naturally a substantial stockpile of [...]

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