Native People of Southern New England, 1650–1775 (Volume 259) (The Civilization of the American Indian Series) - Hardcover

Bragdon, Kathleen J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806140046 ISBN 13: 9780806140049

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009

Synopsis

Despite the popular assumption that Native American cultures in New England declined after Europeans arrived, evidence suggests that Indian communities continued to thrive alongside English colonists. In this sequel to her Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650, Kathleen J. Bragdon continues the Indian story through the end of the colonial era and documents the impact of colonization.

As she traces changes in Native social, cultural, and economic life, Bragdon explores what it meant to be Indian in colonial southern New England. Contrary to common belief, Bragdon argues, Indianness meant continuing Native lives and lifestyles, however distinct from those of the newcomers. She recreates Indian cosmology, moral values, community organization, and material culture to demonstrate that networks based on kinship, marriage, traditional residence patterns, and work all fostered a culture resistant to assimilation.

Bragdon draws on the writings and reported speech of Indians to counter what colonists claimed to be signs of assimilation. She shows that when Indians adopted English cultural forms—such as Christianity and writing—they did so on their own terms, using these alternative tools for expressing their own ideas about power and the spirit world.

Despite warfare, disease epidemics, and colonists’ attempts at cultural suppression, distinctive Indian cultures persisted. Bragdon’s scholarship gives us new insight into both the history of the tribes of southern New England and the nature of cultural contact.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Kathleen J. Bragdon is Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the author of Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650, winner of the Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize of the American Society for Ethnohistory.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0806140046
• ISBN 13: 9780806140049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312