Simon Girty: Turncoat Hero : 9780984225637 : 01 Nov 2009 : The subject of this masterful, panoramic biography is one of the most mysterious, misunderstood icons of early American history. Simon Girty was a sharp-witted, rascally, many-tongued frontiersman whose epic adventures span the French and Indian War, Dunmore's War, the American War for Independence, the Indian Wars, and finally, the War of 1812. When he defected from the Patriot cause to serve the British in March 1778, Girty achieved instant infamy - becoming one of young America's most notorious characters. To understand his motivation one must discover, as he did, that the real, underlying cause of the American Revolution was the unquenchable thirst for Indian land of many of our so-called founding fathers - including George Washington - and their unrelenting dissatisfaction with the restrictions imposed upon their land speculation ambitions by the King's Proclamation of 1763. Like a detective doggedly combing through old ev