The #1 New York Times bestseller by Pulitzer Prize-winning
historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the
American story that's "as resonant today as ever" (The Wall Street
Journal)--the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous
pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on
ideals that would define our country.
As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the
new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the
immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio
River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was
instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the
Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the
Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of
religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the
prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from
New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of
Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is
now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River.
McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and
Putnam; Cutler's son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned
architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in
American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval
wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires,
wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all
the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship
with the native people. Like so many of McCullough's subjects, they let
no obstacle deter or defeat them.
Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of
diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely
American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to
remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially
American story, written with David McCullough's signature narrative
energy.
