Evidence of Things Not Seen: The Missing History of Black Unfreedom, Exclusion, and Discrimination in David McCullough's "The Pioneers"

Long before he actually began work on The Pioneers, David McCullough dreamed of writing about "a cast of real-life characters of historical accomplishment who were entirely unknown to most Americans" (259). Doing so would mark a significant departure from his usual subject matter, well-known figures like Harry Truman, the Wright Brothers, and, perhaps most famously, John Adams. But he had trouble knowing where to start. "[W]here or when, if ever," he wondered, "would [he] find a collection of primary source material—original letters, diaries, memoirs, and the like—sufficient to make that possible?" (260).

McCullough's question was a good one—one historians struggle with constantly. But his failure to familiarize himself with the existing scholarship on the early Midwest, his insistence on using the kinds of sources he was long accustomed to, and his unwillingness to critically engage his evidence impoverishes The Pioneers. These decisions resulted in an account that fails to meaningfully incorporate the Black people in early Ohio, and obscures the long and complicated history of enslaved and indentured labor in the region, the ambiguity of the Northwest Ordinance's supposed ban on slavery, and the limits of racial egalitarianism among white Ohioans. These omissions not only distort the history of frontier Ohio, they also prevent McCullough from accomplishing what he set out to do—bring a group of lesser-known figures "to life" and tell their "amazing" and "important" story (259).