The American Revolution did not emerge in the Ohio Valley out of events taking place on the seaboard. War was already underway in the west, and the coming of the Revolution shifted its context and meaning without altering its fundamental character. The colonies’ break with royal authority was, however, a powerful spur to the progressive dissolution of order and escalation of conflict in the valley. For colonists who were already beginning to settle there without authorization, the language, the ideas, and the urgency of the American Revolution all helped to validate their scramble for western lands. For the region's Indians, the Revolution accelerated the process by which peace chiefs and accommodationists lost ground to war leaders and their followers. As the war progressed, it undermined and invalidated the social patterns that had earlier emerged out of the British and French empires of trade. In their place, a hardening pattern of racial separation and conflict defined the fundamental character of the region's society and culture.

This hardening of racial hostility is such a familiar part of America's early national history that it is difficult not to take it for granted. But if the American Revolution in the valley had been freed from its moorings in the collapse of public authority and the scramble for land, its events might have proceeded very differently.