The Pioneers

The #1 New York Times bestseller by Pulitzer PrizeΓÇôwinning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story thatΓÇÖs ΓÇ£as resonant today as everΓÇ¥ (The Wall Street Journal)ΓÇöthe 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 AmericaBritain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territorya wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of OhioIndianaIllinoisMichiganand 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 religionfree universal educationand most importantlythe 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; CutlerΓÇÖs son Ephraim; and two other menone a carpenter turned architectand the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. ΓÇ£With clarity and incisiveness[McCullough] details the experience of a brave and broad-minded band of people who crossed raging riverschopped down forestsplowed miles of landsuffered incalculable hardshipsand braved a lonely frontier to forge a new American idealΓÇ¥ (The Providence Journal). Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figuresThe Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. ΓÇ£A tale of upliftΓÇ¥ (The New York Times Book Review)this is a quintessentially American storywritten with David McCulloughΓÇÖs signature narrative energy.