University
of Massachusetts Press
Conquering the American Wilderness
The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast
Guy Chet
Challenges
longstanding myths about the nature of warfare in early America
A
study of military tactics and strategy before the War of Independence, this
book reexamines the conquest of the North American wilderness and its native
peoples by colonial settlers. Historians have long believed that the peculiar
conditions of the New World, coupled with the success of Indians tactics, forced
the colonists to abandon traditional European methods of warfare and to develop
a new "American" style of combat. By combining firearms with guerrilla-like
native tactics, colonial commanders were able not only to subdue their Indian
adversaries but eventually to prevail against more conventionally trained British
forces during the American Revolution.
Yet
upon closer scrutiny, this common understanding of early American warfare turns
out to be more myth than reality. As Guy Chet reveals, clashes between colonial
and Indian forces during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not lead
to a reevaluation and transformation of conventional military doctrine. On the
contrary, the poor performance of the settlers during King Philip's War (1675–76)
and King William's War (1689–1697) prompted colonial magistrates to address
the shortcomings of their military forces through a greater reliance on British
troops and imperial administrators. Thus, as the eighteenth century wore on,
growing military success in the New England colonies reflected an increasing
degree of British planning, administration, participation, and command.
The
colonies' military and political leadership, Chet argues, never rejected the
time-tested principles of European warfare, and even during the American War
of Independence, the republic's military leadership looked to Europe for guidance
in the art of combat. "Chet's enterprise is to explain the character and
consequences of American war in its formative period, before the Revolution.
He shows that it is not Americanized warfare, but the progressive Europeanization
of war in America by professional British military and naval officers that ultimately
overwhelms the poorer, less numerous, and less well-organized French-Indian
axis of Canada and the West. Professionalism is the decisive factor, and it
carries on into the Revolution and the early national period as an unsung but
decisive influence on the creation of a new American empire."Fred Anderson,
author of Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War
and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766
"Chet's book presents a timely and convincing challenge to the deeply ingrained
belief that colonial New England militiamen fought 'Indian style.' In reality,
the Revolution's Minutemen embodied the culmination of a process by which the
military tactics of the old world triumphed in the new." Kevin Sweeney,
Amherst College
Guy
Chet is assistant professor of history at the University of North Texas.
American History / Military History
248
pp., 11 illus.
$60.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-366-2
$18.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-382-4
February 2003
Perspectives on American Book
History
Artifacts and Commentary
Edited by Scott E. Casper,
Joanne D. Chaison, and Jeffrey D. Groves
A fine introduction to
print culture in America, accompanied by a CD-ROM image archive
A collection of primary
source materials and original essays, Perspectives on American Book History
is the first text
designed for the growing number of courses in American print culture, as well
as a unique supplement for courses in
American literature and history. It seeks to fill the void that has developed
as the expanding history of the book has moved out of the archive and scholarly
journal and into the classroom. The volume includes an introductory essay by
Robert A. Gross, chair of the program in the history of the book at the American
Antiquarian Society, fourteen chapters composed of primary artifacts and original
essays by rising scholars in the field, and an annotated bibliography of research
sources.
Chapters trace topics in
American print culture from Puritan New England to the future of newspapers
in a digital age. The artifacts and documents, most of which have never before
been anthologized, include excerpts from readers' diaries,
accounts of the printing and publishing trades, materials from the alternative
press, commentaries on authorship and
reading, and visual images. The essays place these primary source materials
in their historical, literary, and political
contexts and model the ways students might approach them.
The volume is accompanied
by a CD-ROM image archive, which includes nearly 200 digital images, captioned
and keyed to the different chapters. Easily read with standard browsers, the
CD-ROM allows access to otherwise scarce materials and vividly assists students
in learning how book history is hands-on history.
In addition to the editors
and Robert A. Gross, the contributors are Nancy Cook, Patricia Crain, Ann Fabian,
Alice Fahs, Ellen Gruber Garvey, Jen A. Huntley-Smith, Charles Johanningsmeier,
Jill Lepore, Russell L. Martin, Trysh Travis, Glenn Wallach, and Susan S. Williams.
"This is one of the
most intelligently edited collections of essays I have seen in a long time.
An intellectually compelling work, it commands the field of American print history,
covering a delightfully wide variety of topics with expert knowledge. Most important,
it is teachable."
Ezra Greenspan, coeditor of the annual Book History
Scott E.
Casper is associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Joanne D. Chaison is the
research librarian at the American Antiquarian Society.
Jeffrey D. Groves is professor
of English at Harvey Mudd College.
Literary Studies / Cultural
Studies / American Studies
480 pp., 44 illus., image archive on CD-ROM 7" x 91/4" format
$70.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-316-6
$24.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-317-4
April 2002
Young Charles Sumner and the
Legacy of the American Enlightenment, 1811—1851
Anne-Marie Taylor
A fresh look at a major but often misunderstood American statesman
An outspoken abolitionist, a founder of the Free Soil and Republican parties,
and a
leading member of the U. S. Senate for more than twenty years, Charles Sumner
(1811—1874) has always figured prominently in histories of the American Civil
War. For the most part, however, he has been depicted as a psychologically troubled
extremist, a fanatical opponent of slavery whose self-righteousness was matched
only
by his arrogance.
In this book, Anne-Marie Taylor challenges that longstanding view, offering in
its
stead the portrait of a man animated more by principle than by impulse or ambition.
According to Taylor, Sumner’s reform-minded politics, including his fervent
commitment to put an end to slavery, must be understood in the context of a young
nation still struggling to live up to the Enlightenment ideals embraced by its
founders and embodied in its Constitution.
Focusing on the first forty years of Sumner’s life, before he took public
office,
Taylor traces the evolution of his character and thought among Boston’s cultural
elite. His belief in the virtues of cosmopolitanism, in the dignity of the human
intellect and conscience, and in the possibility of a cultivated and just society,
all find
their roots in an education steeped in Enlightenment principles. At the same time,
as
a child of New England Puritanism and Revolutionary republicanism, Sumner was
raised to believe in the moral obligation of the individual to work for the common
good.
As Taylor shows in this well-written biography, much of the triumph and tra-gedy
of
Sumner’s story–the energy of his idealism as well as the poignancy of
his eventual
disappointment–derives from the overpowering sense of duty and na-tional
destiny
imbued by his upbringing.
"As engaging a biography as I have read in a long time, impeccably researched
and
beautifully rendered. Taylor’s scholarly intelligence proves consistently
deep and
broad-ranging as she knits together the many diverse strands of influence and
experience that contributed to the shaping of the mature Charles Sumner."–James
Brewer Stewart, author of Wendell Phillips: Liberty’s Hero
"This extremely well-written and deeply researched book offers a fresh and
compelling
interpretation of a figure who has previously been depicted largely in caricature.
. . .
Above all, the author effectively shows how Sumner’s moral absolutism coexisted
with a profound political pragmatism."–Steven Mintz, author of Moralists
and
Modernizers: America’s Pre-Civil War Reformers
Anne-Marie Taylor is an independent scholar.
American History / Biography
480 pp., 20 illus.
$45.00s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-300-X
University of Massachusetts Press
P.O. Box 429
Amherst, MA 01004
Customer Service: (413) 545-2219
Fax: (413) 545-1226
Indian Women and French Men:
Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes
Susan Sleeper-Smith
An innovative study of cultural resilience and resistance in early America
A center of the lucrative fur trade throughout the colonial period, the
Great Lakes region was an important site of cultural as well as
economic exchange between native and European peoples. In this
well-researched study, Susan Sleeper-Smith focuses on an often
overlooked aspect of these interactions–the role played by Indian
women who married French traders.
Drawing on a broad range of primary and secondary sources, she
shows how these women used a variety of means to negotiate a
middle ground between two disparate cultures. Many were converts
to Catholicism who constructed elaborate mixed-blood kinship
networks that paralleled those of native society, thus facilitating the
integration of Indian and French values. By the mid-eighteenth
century, native women had extended these kin linkages to fur trade
communities throughout the Great Lakes, not only enhancing access
to the region’s highly prized pelts but also ensuring safe transport
for other goods.
Indian Women and French Men depicts the encounter of Old World
and New as an extended process of indigenous adap-tation and change
rather than one of con-flict and inevitable demise. By serving as
brokers between those two worlds, Indian women who married
French men helped connect the Great Lakes to a larger, expanding
transatlantic economy while securing the survival of their own
native culture. As such, Sleeper-Smith points out, their experiences
illuminate those of other traditional cultures forced to adapt to
market-motivated Europeans.
"This is groundbreaking work–a major contribution to the history of
both Native Americans and women in this region. The book will
become required reading for any course that focuses on the role of
mixed bloods or Native Americans in the western Great Lakes and
Mississippi."–R. David Edmunds, coauthor of The Fox Wars: The
Mesquakie Challenge to New France
Susan Sleeper-Smith is assistant pro-fessor of history at
Michigan State University and coeditor of New Faces of the Fur
Trade: Selected Papers of the Seventh North American Fur Trade
Conference.
American History / Native American Studies
264 pp., 8 color illus.
$45.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-308-5
$18.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-310-7
August 2001
A volume in the series Native Americans of the
Northeast: Culture, History, and the Contemporary
White Robe’s Dilemma
Tribal History in American Literature
Neil Schmitz
How one native tribe has
successfully preserved its own heritage within Euro-American culture
The Mesquakie peoples of present-day Iowa, historically known as the “Fox,”
are at the center of White
Robe’s Dilemma. An encounter with the French in the Great Lakes region,
their original homeland, marked
their first appearance in Euro-American history. Targeted for annihilation after
they refused alliance with the
French, they nevertheless endured, reappearing again and again in the records
of the English and Americans as
well as the French.
Over the years, the resistance of the Mesquakies has taken many forms, diplomatic
and military, economic and
cultural. They have rejected Christianity for the most part, and ridiculed the
many anthropologists who keep
coming to study them. A substantial number have managed, unlike virtually any
other Indian group in the
United States, to elude the reservation system by buying and main-taining their
own settlement. Several have
made important contributions to the literature in English by Indians, as has
Black Hawk, of the confederate
Sauk, whose autobiography has been in print since the Jacksonian period; William
Jones, who became a student
of renowned anthropologist Franz Boaz; and Ray Young Bear, author of the highly
regarded autobiography,
Black Eagle Child or The Facepaint Narratives.
In this intriguing study, Neil Schmitz imaginatively reconstructs and carefully
analyzes the multiple legacies of
the Mesquakie people. He shows how the complex story of their survival raises
critical questions about the
representation of Indians in American literature and history.
Although the Mesquakies are central to the book, Schmitz ranges widely through
American literature both by
and about Indians. Chapters on Standing Bear and Black Elk reopen the issue
of agency and status, and
reposition their tribal history. Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor
and Elaine Goodale Eastman’s
Sister of the Sioux are given extensive readings. In pointed example and comparison,
the author’s broad
knowledge of American literature repeatedly shows itself.
“This short volume is very long in its reach. It is a seminal book with
which any serious scholar of American
Indian literatures and histories will have to contend.”—Barry O’Connell,
editor of On Our Own Ground: The
Complete Writings of William Apess, A Pequot
Neil Schmitz is professor of English at the State University of New York at
Buffalo and author of Of Huck
and Alice: Humorous Writing in American Literature.
Native American Studies / Cultural Studies / American Literature
224 pp.
$40.00s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-290-9
$17.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-291-7
February 2001
A volume in the series Native Americans of the Northeast: Culture, History,
and the Contemporary
American Architects and Their
Books to 1848
Edited by Kenneth Hafertepe and James F. O’Gorman
Examines the use of books
by architects in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century America
Since the Renaissance, books and drawings have been a primary means
of communication among architects and their colleagues and clients. In this
volume, twelve historians explore
the use of books by architects in America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, a period when the
profession
of architecture was first emerging in the United States.
As architects separated themselves from amateur and gentlemen designers on the
one hand and masons and
carpenters on the other, members of the profession were distinguished by their
ability to draw and their
possession of a common body
of learning gleaned from printed sources. Clients and patrons expected architects
to derive their designs from precedents communicated in books. These publications
reproduced the work of
European masters and, eventually, Anglo-American examples as well.
The essays in this volume range from studies of architectural publications available
in the colonies, to the
appearance of American architectural incunabula, to the revolution in architectural
publishing that occurred in the
1830s and 1840s. In addition to the editors, contributors include Sarah Allaback,
Bennie Brown, Jeffrey A.
Cohen, Abbott Lowell Cummings, Robert F. Dalzell Jr., Michael J. Lewis, Martha
J. McNamara, Damie
Stillman, Richard Guy Wilson, and Charles B. Wood III.
“The scholarship in American Architects and Their Books is sound and up
to date. The contributors are
leaders in the field and promising younger historians. Because this is the first
full-scale exam-ination of the
topic, the book will be welcomed by architectural historians, students of reading
and the history of the book, and
historians of collecting as well as collectors themselves.”—Eleanor
McD. Thompson, The Winterthur Library
“American Architects and Their Books is a major contribution to the field
of American architectural and
cultural history.”—Jack Quinan, SUNY, Buffalo
Formerly director of academic programs at Historic Deerfield, Inc., Kenneth
Hafertepe is assistant professor
of museum studies at Baylor University.
James F. O’Gorman is the Grace Slack McNeil Professor of the History of
American Art at Wellesley
College.
Architectural History / American History
280 pp., 81illus.
$29.95s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-282-8
February 2001
A volume in the series Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book
Writing Indians
Literacy, Christianity, and Native Community in Early America
Hilary E. Wyss
A reinterpretation
of the place of the Christian Indian in colonial America.
A study of cultural encounter, this book takes a fresh look at the much ignored
and often misunderstood experience of
Christian Indians in early America. Focusing on New England missionary settlements
from the mid-seventeenth to the
early nineteenth centuries, Hilary E. Wyss examines the ways in which Native American
converts to Christianity
developed their own distinct identity within the context of a colonial culture.
With an approach that weaves together literature, religious studies, and ethno-history,
Wyss grounds her work in the
analysis of a rarely read body of “autobiographical” writings by Christian
Indians, including letters, journal entries, and
religious confessions. She then juxtaposes these documents to the writings of
better known Native Americans like
Samson Occom as well as to the published works of Anglo-Americans, such as Mary
Rowlandson’s famous captivity
narrative and Eleazor Wheelock’s accounts of his charity schools.
In their search for ostensibly “authentic” Native voices, scholars have
tended to overlook the writings of Christian
Indians. Yet, Wyss argues, these texts reveal the emergence of a dynamic Native
American identity through Christianity.
More specifically, they show how the active appropriation of New England Protestantism
contributed to the formation
of a particular Indian identity that resisted colonialism by using its language
against itself.
“This book will fill a crucial gap in Native American literary studies. While
there have been biographical studies of
some of the figures Wyss discusses, and works focusing on individual authors of
this period, there is no other critical
work that brings such diverse forms of writing—missionary tracts, captivity
narratives, diplomatic exchanges—together.
This is well-researched, necessary scholarship.” —Michael A. Elliott,
Emory University
Hilary E. Wyss is assistant professor of English at Auburn University
Native American Studies / American Studies / Literary Studies
256 pp.
$29.95s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-264-X
August 2000
Indian Giving: Economies of
Power in Early Indian-White Exchanges
David Murray
An innovative interdisciplinary study of the cultural encounter between Europeans
and native
peoples in the colonial Northeast
Whether they involved goods, words, or ideas, acts of giving and trading were
fundamental in early
Indian-white contacts. But how did these transactions function across the two
cultures, and what did they
mean to each? In this book, David Murray explores a range of early exchanges between
Europeans and
Indians, showing how they operated within a set of interlocking economies—linguistic,
religious, as well
as material.
Murray begins by examining the crucial role of gift-giving. Like the double function
of the key, which
both locks and unlocks, the gift—with its simultaneous action of offering
something and demanding a
return—expressed the paradoxical nature of early Indian-white encounters.
Because the power to give was
associated with ideas of sovereignty, both sides often preferred to represent
exchanges as gift-giving rather
than trading or selling.
To illustrate the complexities of these cross-cultural transactions, the author
looks closely at the work of
linguist, trader, and missionary Roger Williams, whose A Key into the Language
of America at once
serves the purposes of translation, conversion, and trade. Murray also examines
the changing meaning and
representation of wampum, the quintessential medium of exchange in the early colonial
period, as well as
the multiple processes of conversion taking place as Christian ideas were incorporated
into Indian cultures.
According to the author, only by recognizing the ways in which objects and ideas
circulated and took on
value in interrelated economies can we understand the contested “middle ground”
between Europeans and
Indians of the colonial Northeast.
“Provocative and compelling. This book will add significantly to the discussion
of the intercultural
dynamics between Indians and Europeans in the early contact period in the Northeast.”
—Eric Cheyfitz,
University of Pennsylvania
David Murray teaches American and Canadian studies at the University of Nottingham
and is author of
Forked Tongues: Speech, Writing, and Representation in North American Indian Texts.
Native American Studies / New England Studies
296 pp., 1 illustration
$50.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-243-7
$18.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-244-5
July 2000
A volume in the series Native Americans of the Northeast: Culture, History, and
the Contemporary
Massachusetts: A Concise History
Richard D. Brown and Jack Tager
A succinct
survey of the Bay State’s rich past, from the period of English settlement
to the end of the twentieth century
From the moment the first English colonists landed on the shores of Plymouth Bay,
the experiences of the people of Massachusetts have been emblematic of larger
themes in American history. The story of the first Pilgrim thanksgiving is commemorated
as a national holiday, while the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere’s ride
have passed into the national mythology. Even the grimmer aspects of the American
experience—Indian warfare and the conquest of an ever expanding frontier—were
part of the early history of Massachusetts.
In this book, Richard D. Brown and Jack Tager survey the rich heritage of this
distinctive, and distinctly American, place, showing how it has long exerted an
influence disproportionate to its size. A seedbed of revolt against British colonial
rule, Massachusetts has supplied the nation with a long line of political leaders—from
Samuel and John Adams to William Lloyd Garrison and Lucy Stone to John, Robert,
and Edward Kennedy. Its early textile mills helped shape the industrial revolution,
while its experiences with urbanization, immigration, ethnic conflict, and
labor strife reflected the growth of the national economy. In the twentieth century,
the state continued to lead the country through a series of wrenching economic
changes as it moved from the production of goods to the provision of services,
eventually becoming a center of the high-tech revolution in telecommunications.
If there is one common theme in the Bay State’s history, Brown and Tager
make clear, it is the capacity to adapt to change. In part this trait can be attributed
to the state’s unique blend of resources, including its many distinguished
colleges and universities. But it can also be credited to thepeople themselves,
who have created a singular sense of place by reconciling claims of tradition
with the possibilities of innovation. This book tells their story.
“A welcome volume that will fill an important niche, since there is no general
history of Massachusetts currently in print. It covers the history of the state
nicely, combining broad historical generalization, often supported by good use
of statistical and other hard data, with character sketches of significant figures
from different eras of the state’s history. The book will immediately become
the standard history.” —James O’Toole, Boston College
Richard D. Brown is professor of history at the University of Connecticut. His
latest book is The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in
Early America, 1650–1870.
Jack Tager is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
and coeditor of the Historical Atlas of Massachusetts (University of Massachusetts
Press, 1991).
American History / New England History
400 pp., 42 illustrations
$60.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-248-8
$19.95t paper, ISBN 1-55849-249-6
August 2000
Elizabeth Murray: A Woman’s
Pursuit of Independence in Eighteenth-Century America
Patricia Cleary
A woman shopkeeper’s struggle to achieve economic self-sufficiency
in eighteenth-century Boston
One of the most compelling figures in colonial America, Elizabeth Murray (1726–1785)
was a Scottish immigrant who settled in Boston in her early twenties and took
up shopkeeping. For many years, she practiced her trade successfully while marrying
three times, once to a much older man who left her an extremely rich widow. This
biography chronicles the life of this extraordinary “ordinary” woman
who tried to make a place for herself and other women in the world by asserting
her own independence inside and outside of the home.
As an importer and retailer of British goods, Murray conducted business with merchants
and manufacturers in England and buyers in the American colonies, even traveling
to London to select her own stock. Deeply satisfied by her work and the economic
freedom it brought her, she acted as mentor to other women, helping them to establish
shops of their own. She also protected her autonomy by demanding prenuptial agreements
from her second and third husbands that gave her a measure of control over her
property that was rare for a married woman of her day.
The spirit of independence that Murray so valued in herself and nurtured in other
women was severely tested by the upheavals of the American Revolution. With strong
loyalties to both Britain and America, she was torn by the conflict, especially
when close relatives chose opposing sides and her third husband abandoned her,
leaving her to defend the family estate alone. Her wartime experiences—wild
midnight rides, accusations of being a spy, quartering both royal and rebel troops,
and brief imprisonment—vividly capture the turmoil of the Revolution and
highlight the range of her
political commitments.
“There are so few biographies of women in the eighteenth century grounded
on primary materials; Cleary’s work is both needed and original. Besides
writing a compelling narrative history, Cleary raises important questions about
women. She explores issues of work, money, identity, politics, inheritance, and
the passing on of ‘character’ and fortune to female relatives. This
book is a lively and important addition to our knowledge of both women and the
American Revolutionary era.”—June Namias, author of White Captives:
Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier,
1607–1862
Patricia Cleary is associate professor of history at California State University,
Long Beach.
Biography / Women’s Studies / American History
256 pp., 14 illustrations
$29.95t cloth, ISBN 1-55849-263-1
July 2000
King Philip’s War
Civil War in New England, 1675–1676
James D. Drake
A definitive history of the war that altered the world of colonial New England
Sometimes described as “America’s deadliest war,” King Philip’s
War proved a critical turning point in the history of New England,
leaving English colonists decisively in command of the region at the expense of
native peoples. Although traditionally understood as an inevitable clash of cultures
or as a classic example of conflict on the frontier between Indians and whites,
in the view of James D. Drake it was neither. Instead, he argues, King Philip’s
War was a civil war, whose divisions cut across ethnic lines and tore apart a
society composed of English colonizers and Native Americans alike.
According to Drake, the interdependence
that developed between English and Indian in the years leading up to the war
helps explain its notorious brutality. Believing they were dealing with an internal
rebellion and therefore with an act of treason, the colonists and their native
allies often meted out harsh punish-ments. The end result was nothing less than
the decimation of New England’s indigenous peoples and the consequent social,
political, and cultural reorganization of the region. In short, by waging war
among themselves, the English and Indians of New England destroyed the world
they had constructed together. In its place a new society emerged, one in which
native peoples were marginalized and the culture of the New England Way receded
into the past.
“What one has here is the genuine
article--colonial history that is fully about all the peoples in the region.
This is neither ‘white’ nor ‘Indian’ history. . . . It is
the first serious scholarly history of King Philip’s War in well over a
generation. Drake is a historian who knows how to write, how to make his subjects
fully human, tell multiple stories, and keep his readers eager for more.”--Barry
O’Connell, editor of On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William
Apess, a Pequot
“The need for a single-volume treatment
of King Philip’s War that is well informed not only by recent scholarship
on native peoples but on the English colonizers is greater than ever. Drake
satisfies that need by offering a series of provocative theses about the conflict
and its protagonists. The result is a book that should be as productively controversial
as Jill Lepore’s The Name of War.”--Neal Salisbury, author of Manitou
and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500–1643
James D. Drake is assistant professor of
history at Metropolitan State College of Denver.
American History / Native American Studies / New England
288 pp. 4 illustrations
$50.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-223-2
$16.95t paper, ISBN 1-55849-224-0
January 2000
A volume in the series Native Americans of the Northeast: Culture, History,
and the Contemporary
August 13, 2002