Great Plains

The Great Plains, sometimes referred to as the Great American Desert, teemed with life in the century after 1750.

Before 1700 only limited numbers of Native Americans had ventured onto its vast open spaces. But the introduction of the horse in the late 17th century from New Mexico allowed many Indians to alter their culture and pursue the huge herds of buffalo that wandered the region; Coman-ches trekked from the Great Basin area in eastern Utah, and the Sioux moved from the east and the prairies of Minnesota. This transformation took decades to develop. By the second half of the 18th century, these tribes had created the elaborate Plains Indian culture that was largely dependent on the horse for mobility and the buffalo for almost everything else.

There were several key characteristics of this culture: First, tribes became decentralized since there was less need for cooperation in a nomadic lifestyle; agriculture had required greater group organization for labor and for protection. Second, the gender division of labor changed. Women had previously been the primary food producers by gathering food and growing crops. Now their labor focused on the dressing of meats and the tanning of hides. With this shift also came some diminution of the status of women within the tribe. Finally, the Plains Indians developed extensive trade networks that reached from New Mexico and the Rio Grande to Hudson’s Bay in Canada, and from beyond the Rockies to the European Americans on the Atlantic.

There were also important shifts in the balance of power in this period. The Comanches drove the Apache into the deserts of the Southwest. Further north, the sedentary tribes of the Mandan and Hidatsa, visited by the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803-06), had been vital as trading centers around 1800, but soon lost ground as they were devastated by disease and epidemics. Because of the dispersed nature of the mobile Plains Indians they suffered less from disease at this time. Europeans also claimed the Great Plains. French fur traders traveled throughout the area in the late 18th century. Spain held title to most of the Plains after 1763 but did not colonize the region beyond southern Texas and the Mississippi outposts established by the French. Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase (1803) by the United States, explorers such as Lewis and Clark and Zebulon Pike crossed the Great Plains and fur trading penetrated into the Rockies. European-American settlement of the Great Plains would have to wait until later in the 19th century.

See also frontier.

Further reading: Gary Clayton Anderson, The Indian Southwest, 1580-1830: Ethnogenesis and Reinvention (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999); Andrew C. Isenberg, The Devastation of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Greene, Nathanael (1742-1786) Continental army general

One of General George Washington’s ablest lieutenants, Nathanael Greene, served in the army from the siege of Boston until after the British surrender at Yorktown (October 19, 1781). He fought in several battles and took over command of the southern campaign at a critical juncture after the defeat of Horatio Gates at the Battle of Camden (August 15, 1780).

Little in Greene’s background suggested that he would become an important military figure. He was born in Warwick, Rhode Island, to Quaker parents. He was brought up in some comfort, and became an anchor smith and ironmonger. By the time of the Revolutionary War (177583), he had left the Society of Friends and was eager to fight against the British. Somehow the Rhode Island Assembly recognized his greatest assets—tremendous organizational skills and the ability to instill confidence and lead men—by appointing him in May 1775 as the general in command of the Rhode Island Army of Observation joining the siege of Boston. Once the Rhode Island troops arrived in the Boston area, Greene’s talents quickly came to the fore, helping to organize supplies for the army and

Brigadier General Nathanael Greene (Independence National Historical Park)

Easing intercolonial tensions. On June 22 he was appointed a brigadier general in the Continental army, and after the British evacuated Boston in the spring of 1776, he was put in charge of the army of occupation for the city.

During the next few years, Greene participated in every major campaign led by General Washington. In April

1775,  Greene brought his Rhode Island regiments to New York City and helped to prepare the defenses against a British attack. He was promoted to major general on June 22,

1776.  Although he was ill and did not fight in the Battle of Long Island (August 27-30, 1776), he recovered in time to take command of the Continental forces in New Jersey in the fall of 1776. His attack in October on Staten Island had to be called back after General William Howe threatened Washington at the Battle of White Plains (October 28, 1776), and he had to oversee the retreat from Fort Lee after the disastrous loss of Fort Washington (November 17, 1776) on Harlem Heights. He retained Washington’s confidence in the face of defeat and had command of one the columns at the Battle of Trenton (December 26, 1776), cutting off the retreat of many Hessians and forcing their surrender. He was important in setting up the winter camp at Morristown and in skirmishing with the British in New Jersey in the spring of 1777. During the Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1778), his stout defense in the center and careful retreat helped save the Continental army from destruction. In the attack at Germantown (October 4, 1777), which depended upon coordinated assaults at dawn and in the fog, Greene failed to bring his division into play early enough to have an impact on the battle. Greene was also unable to hold onto the Delaware River forts in November, after the main Continental forces retreated to Valley Forge (1777-78) and the British occupied Philadelphia.

Recognizing the difficulties of the military situation, Washington did not blame Greene for these reverses. When the Second Continental Congress wanted to appoint a new quartermaster general for the army, Washington immediately suggested Greene. As quartermaster from February 25, 1778, to July 15, 1780, Greene once again demonstrated his talents for organization in supplying the army. He also continued as a field commander, participating in the Battle of Monmouth (June 28,

1778) and an abortive attack on Newport that led to the Battle of Rhode Island (August 29, 1778). Although often adept at smoothing relations between different men, politics ultimately compelled Greene to resign as quartermaster. His greatest service to the cause of independence was yet to come.

In 1780 Charles, Lord Cornwallis’s invasion of the southern colonies had almost ended the rebellion in that region. The capture of Charleston on May 12, 1780 (see also siege of Charleston) followed by the Battle of Camden all but eliminated the presence of the Continental army in South Carolina. At this crucial moment, Washington needed to send someone to the South he could depend on. He chose the Rhode Island ironmonger, Nathanael Greene. As soon as he received his appointment on October 14, 1780, Greene began planning and organizing. Greene’s first order of business was to make sure that his army would be adequately supplied. As he reformed the Continental army in North Carolina, he made the unorthodox move of splitting his forces. Cornwallis obliged him by splitting his own army, sending Banastre Tarleton after Daniel Morgan in the South Carolina backcountry. Morgan so severely trounced Tarleton at the Battle Of CowPENS (January 17, 1781) that Cornwallis abandoned his baggage and set off after Greene in an effort to corner him and regain the initiative. But Greene was wily and kept one step ahead of the pursuing British. When Cornwallis at last gave up the chase in northern North Carolina, Greene advanced. Cornwallis’s troops were still superior to the Continentals and defeated them at the Battle Of Guil-EORD Courthouse (March 15, 1781). But this victory was so costly that Cornwallis marched to Wilmington on the coast and then headed to his ill fated invasion of Virginia.

Greene did not follow Cornwallis. Instead he marched into South Carolina and captured several British outposts. Greene was still no match for concentrated British forces. The British, for example, beat back his attack at EuTAW Springs (September 8, 1781), but he continued to apply pressure until the British withdrew all their forces except those that held Charleston. As Greene explained: “We rise, get beat, rise, and fight again.”

At the end of the war, Greene faced financial difficulties. Although he was granted land by South Carolina and Georgia, and made profits as a supplier when he was quartermaster, he also used his own credit and resources to sustain the army. The war also took a physical toll on him as well. In the last few years of his life he divided his time between property he owned in Rhode Island and in Georgia having moved in his lifetime from being a Quaker to becoming a southern slave owner.

Further reading: Theodore Thayer, Nathanael Greene: Strategist of the American Revolution (New York: Twayne, 1960).