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SIMCOE & THE AMERICAN COMMISSIONERS 1793

History invites us to visualize dinners, dances, discussions - daily life.

Review Questions

Vocabulary: sachems, inviolate, insatiable, impasse, treaty, precurser, muster, levee, birthright, squatter, explicit, lament, dragoons.

1. (a) How did the American visitors attempt to explain the Revolution?
(b) What do you think of their comparison?

2. (a)Why was Simcoe hosting the commissioners?
(b)Why do you think Mrs. Simcoe resented her American guests?

3. If Washington saw no solution in the meeting with the Native Council, why would the Americans agree to take part in it?

4. Explain: (a) feu de joi; (b) fragile federation; (e) opened the floodgates; (f) regret what they have lost rather than remember what they have received. (g) the chief's lament; (h) necessary precurser to the destruction of the Indians; (i) Britain's mediation; (j) bottom line.

5. Why was Simcoe more apprehensive about an American attack when France and Britain went to war?

6. What was the chief cause of the tensions between the Americans and the Aboriginals?

7. Why were the Americans unwilling to accept the Ohio River as a boundary between them and the Aboriginal peoples?

8. Why was Britain concerned about the outcome of their conflict?

9. It is suggested that the Americans were not really persuaded that negotiations would lead to a settlement. Why then did they bother to negotiate with the Natives?

10. Why was Britain unwilling to aid her old allies?

11. Why were the Aborigines ultimately defeated?

12.(a) Why do you think Simcoe would have sent his message to London in code? (b) Why did he think the Loyalists would be relucant to take up arms again against the Americans?

13.Simcoe feared fighting between the Aborigines and the United States because it would engulf the colony. What did he mean by this?

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