Revising the standard narrative of European-Indian relations in America, Juliana Barr reconstructs a world in which Indians were the dominant power and Europeans were the ones forced to accommodate, resist, and persevere. She demonstrates that between the 1690s and 1780s, Indian peoples including Caddos, Apaches, Payayas, Karankawas, Wichitas, and Comanches formed relationships with Spaniards in Texas that refuted European claims of imperial control. Barr argues that Indians not only retained control over their territories but also imposed control over Spaniards. Instead of being defined in racial terms, as was often the case with European constructions of power, diplomatic relations between the Indians and Spaniards in the region were dictated by Indian expressions of power, grounded in gendered terms of kinship. By examining six realms of encounter--first contact, settlement and intermarriage, mission life, warfare, diplomacy, and captivity--Barr shows that native categories of gender provided the political structure of Indian-Spanish relations by defining people's identity, status, and obligations vis-a-vis others. Because native systems of kin-based social and political order predominated, argues Barr, Indian concepts of gender cut across European perceptions of racial difference.

Don’t we all want just a little more peace in our lives? Peace in relationships. Peace at home and at work. Peace from painful memories. Release from pressures and demands that threaten to crush us. What if we could build a moment of peace into every day of the year, opening our hearts to the peace God has promised? Wouldn’t it be great to live with less fear and anxiety and with more confidence and joy? The One Year Devotions for Women is a chance to spend time with God every day, to breathe deeply and grab on to the kind of peace that only God can offer—a peace far richer and more satisfying than anything we can hope or imagine. Each of these uplifting devotions includes a key Scripture verse, a devotional reading, and a suggested prayer for connecting with God.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French colonists and their Native allies participated in a slave trade that spanned half of North America, carrying thousands of Native Americans into bondage in the Great Lakes, Canada, and the Caribbean. In Bonds of Alliance, Brett Rushforth reveals the dynamics of this system from its origins to the end of French colonial rule. Balancing a vast geographic and chronological scope with careful attention to the lives of enslaved individuals, this book gives voice to those who lived through the ordeal of slavery and, along the way, shaped French and Native societies. Rather than telling a simple story of colonial domination and Native victimization, Rushforth argues that Indian slavery in New France emerged at the nexus of two very different forms of slavery: one indigenous to North America and the other rooted in the Atlantic world. The alliances that bound French and Natives together forced a century-long negotiation over the nature of slavery and its place in early American society. Neither fully Indian nor entirely French, slavery in New France drew upon and transformed indigenous and Atlantic cultures in complex and surprising ways. Based on thousands of French and Algonquian-language manuscripts archived in Canada, France, the United States and the Caribbean, Bonds of Alliance bridges the divide between continental and Atlantic approaches to early American history. By discovering unexpected connections between distant peoples and places, Rushforth sheds new light on a wide range of subjects, including intercultural diplomacy, colonial law, gender and sexuality, and the history of race.

Peace Pirates encourages and equips moms to stay ahead of what steals their peace and joy, so they can fully experience the blessings of motherhood, that parenting isn't just a title; it is a treasure. Why do moms find themselves settling for a depleted and frustrated existence when motherhood is truly one of the greatest gifts from God? Being a mom is one of the most important-yet-difficult roles a woman will ever fill. Deep in their hearts, many women believe they are failing their families, are emotionally anemic, and are utterly helpless to maintain their peace while raising kids. As a result, hearts and homes are constantly defeated by the "peace pirates" that are allowed to take away the security God paid for His children to have. As a wife, mother of four boys, and blogger to hundreds of thousands of mothers, Ashley Willis experienced the stress of trying to be the best mom God wants her to be, while constantly fearing that she's missing out on the real treasure. With God's help, mothers can find the treasure in the midst of the struggle and remain faithful through all seasons of motherhood--especially the difficult ones--and claim their peace. peace pirates will teach readers how to stay "treasured up" by first helping them identify the four stressors, or, peace pirates, that challenge their zest and contentment. With powerful personal and biblical insights, peace pirates will encourage and equip moms to stay ahead of what steals their joy so they can fully experience the blessings of motherhood.

When Europe introduced mechanisms to control New World territories, resources and populations, women-whether African, indigenous, mixed race, or European-responded and participated in multiple ways. By adopting a comprehensive view of female agency, the essays in this collection reveal the varied implications of women's experiences in colonialism in North and South America. Although the Spanish American context receives particular attention here, the volume contrasts the context of both colonial Mexico and Peru to every other major geographic region that became a focus of European imperialism in the early modern period: the Caribbean, Brazil, English America, and New France. The chapters provide a coherent perspective on the comparative history of European colonialism in the Americas through their united treatment of four central themes: the gendered implications of life on colonial frontiers; non-European women's relationships to Christian institutions; the implications of race-mixing; and social networks established by women of various ethnicities in the colonial context. This volume adds a new dimension to current scholarship in Atlantic history through its emphasis on culture, gender and race, and through its explicit effort to link religion to the broader imperial framework of economic extraction and political domination.

Traces the history of Smeltertown, Texas, a city located on the banks of the Rio Grande that was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who worked at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas, with information from newspapers, personalarchives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews.