Out of the Wilderness

1679-1814

Out of the Wilderness, the opening volume of the series, tells the story of the encounter of Europeans, African Americans and Native Americans on the Niagara Frontier. In colonial days, the site of Buffalo was the gateway to the American West inside the territory of the Seneca Nation. The book follows the diplomacy and warfare between French imperialists and Seneca leaders over control of the famous portage route around Niagara Falls. The epic story of Daniel Chabert, Buffalo's first European farmer, illuminates the conflicts of the era. With the coming of the British to the Niagara Frontier, the Seneca made the fatal choice of supporting the British nation in the American Revolutionary War. The 1779 raid by U.S. troops into Western New York drove many Seneca families to settle along Buffalo Creek. Then in 1797, at Big Tree, the Seneca were duped into selling most of Western New York to the Holland Land Company for $100,000. The family of Gamaliel and Margaret St. John illustrates the earliest days of white settlement at Buffalo. When the Native Americans took their revenge by (spoiler alert) burning Buffalo in the War of 1812, Margaret St. John was the lone resident to remain in town and preserve her house from fire.