Choice Review

Based on recently discovered papers of George Morgan, this volume focuses on Morgan's role as an intermediary between the US government and the tribes of the upper Ohio Valley at the opening of the American Revolution. Critical of government policies, Schaaf illustrates that Washington and other officials cynically sabotaged Morgan's attempts to protect the Indian land base and to keep the tribes neutral. Containing extensive quotations (Indian speeches, correspondence, etc.) from the Morgan papers, the volume offers a good account of American-Indian-British diplomacy in the region. The quotations provide detailed information about contemporary Indian leaders, especially within the Delaware tribe. Some historians may find Schaaf's perspective polemical and some of his generalizations speculative, but his illumination of the intricacies of frontier diplomacy on the upper Ohio enlarges readers' understanding. College and university libraries. -R. D. Edmunds, Indiana University--Bloomington