"The Embattled Northeast breaks with established wisdom concerning the dynamics of Indian-white relations. It shows that Euramericans' technological superiority did not undermine the Abenaki's self-confidence, but that trade pushed the tribes toward reaching an alliance among themselves as the first step in dealing with colonials. The study also tells how the Abenaki adapted to the post-contact world in order to secure their lives in religious terms, combining their own religious beliefs with compatible French Jesuit teachings"--Jacket.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived

The essays in this volume deal with topics such as colonial habitation, imperial exchange, and aboriginal engagement, all of which were pervasive phenomena of the time.

Nashaway became Lancaster, Wachusett became Princeton, and all of Nipmuck County became the county of Worcester. Town by town, New England grew—Watertown, Sudbury, Turkey Hills, Fitchburg, Westminster, Walpole—and with each new community the myth of America flourished. In People of the Wachusett the history of the New England town becomes the cultural history of America's first frontier. Integral to this history are the firsthand narratives of town founders and citizens, English, French, and Native American, whose accounts of trading and warring, relocating and putting down roots proved essential to the building of these communities. Town plans, local records, broadside ballads, vernacular house forms and furniture, festivals—all come into play in this innovative book, giving a rich picture of early Americans creating towns and crafting historical memory. Beginning with the Wachusett, in northern Worcester County, Massachusetts, David Jaffee traces the founding of towns through inland New England and Nova Scotia, from the mid-seventeenth century through the Revolutionary Era. His history of New England's settlement is one in which the replication of towns across the landscape is inextricable from the creation of a regional and national culture, with stories about colonization giving shape and meaning to New England life.

In examining the history of northeastern North America in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries, it is important to take into account diverse influences and experiences. Not only was the relationship between native inhabitants and colonial settlers a defining characteristic of Acadia/Nova Scotia and New England in this era, but it was also a relationship shaped by wider continental and oceanic connections. The essays in this volume deal with topics such as colonial habitation, imperial exchange, and aboriginal engagement, all of which were pervasive phenomena of the time. John G. Reid argues that these were complicated processes that interacted freely with one another, shaping the human experience at different times and places. Northeastern North America was an arena of distinctive complexities in the early modern period, and this collection uses it as an example of a manageable and logical basis for historical study. Reid also explores the significance of anniversary observances and commemorations that have served as vehicles of reflection on the lasting implications of historical developments in the early modern period. These and other insights amount to a fresh perspective on the region and offer a deeper understanding of North American history.

The early modern period (c. 1500OCo1800) of world history is characterized by the establishment and aggressive expansion of European empires, and warfare between imperial powers and indigenous peoples was a central component of the quest for global dominance. From the Portuguese in Africa to the Russians and Ottomans in Central Asia, empire builders could not avoid military interactions with native populations, and many discovered that imperial expansion was impossible without the cooperation, and, in some cases, alliances with the natives they encountered in the new worlds they sought to rule. Empires and Indigenes is a sweeping examination of how intercultural interactions between Europeans and indigenous people influenced military choices and strategic action. Ranging from the Muscovites on the western steppe to the French and English in North America, it analyzes how diplomatic and military systems were designed to accommodate the demands and expectations of local peoples, who aided the imperial powers even as they often became subordinated to them. Contributors take on the analytical problem from a variety of levels, from the detailed case studies of the different ways indigenous peoples could be employed, to more comprehensive syntheses and theoretical examinations of diplomatic processes, ethnic soldier mobilization, and the interaction of culture and military technology. Warfare and Culture series. Contributors: Virginia Aksan, David R. Jones, Marjoleine Kars, Wayne E. Lee, Mark Meuwese, Douglas M. Peers, Geoffrey Plank, Jenny Hale Pulsipher, and John K. Thornton

A true picture of relationships between the Indians of northern New England and the European settlers.