New England Indians created the multitribal Brothertown and Stockbridge communities during the eighteenth century with the intent of using Christianity and civilized reforms to cope with white expansion. In Red Brethren, David J. Silverman considers the stories of these communities and argues that Indians in early America were racial thinkers in their own right and that indigenous people rallied together as Indians not only in the context of violent resistance but also in campaigns to adjust peacefully to white dominion. All too often, the Indians discovered that their many concessions to white demands earned them no relief. In the era of the American Revolution, the pressure of white settlements forced the Brothertowns and Stockbridges from New England to Oneida country in upstate New York. During the early nineteenth century, whites forced these Indians from Oneida country, too, until they finally wound up in Wisconsin. Tired of moving, in the 1830s and 1840s, the Brothertowns and Stockbridges became some of the first Indians to accept U.S. citizenship, which they called "becoming white," in the hope that this status would enable them to remain as Indians in Wisconsin. Even then, whites would not leave them alone. Red Brethren traces the evolution of Indian ideas about race under this relentless pressure. In the early seventeenth century, indigenous people did not conceive of themselves as Indian. They sharpened their sense of Indian identity as they realized that Christianity would not bridge their many differences with whites, and as they fought to keep blacks out of their communities. The stories of Brothertown and Stockbridge shed light on the dynamism of Indians' own racial history and the place of Indians in the racial history of early America.
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New England Indians created the multitribal Brothertown and Stockbridge communities during the eighteenth century with the intent of using Christianity and civilized reforms to cope with white expansion. Red Brethren considers their history and meaning.
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Prologue: That Overwhelming Tide of Fate 1. All One Indian 2. Converging Paths 3. Betrayals 4. Out from Under the Burdens 5. Exodus 6. Cursed 7. Red Brethren 8. More Than They Know How to Endure 9. Indians or Citizens, White Men or Red? Epilogue: "Extinction" and a "Common Ancestor" Notes Index
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By examining the origin and development of race consciousness among the Brothertowns and Stockbridges, David J. Silverman opens a window onto Native explanations of colonialism and its discontents for Indian peoples.... Red Brethren is a concise, well-researched, passionately written case study of the formation of racial identity among two Native groups. Silverman suggests that these northeastern Alongonquian communities' racial identities as Indians emerged from practical struggles—principally the need to resist relentless land pressure—with a strong assist from awakened religion. He is careful not to homogenize the process and draws subtle distinctions in how it unfolded among the Brothertowns and the Stockbridges. But while the development of racial consciousness might not have been uniform across every community, Silverman sees race emerging within particular regional landscapes. Red Brethren invites, and will doubtless reward, close comparison with other studies of race formation among other peoples, not only Indians, throughout early America.
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Red Brethren is a pathbreaking and important book. Without soft-pedaling or minimizing the record of Euroamerican greed and duplicity, David J. Silverman demonstrates that many Indians were able to assimilate Christianity and make it their own mode of reaffirming their communities and taking control of their own destinies. Silverman makes clear that this was neither an easy nor a triumphant process; one of this book's admirable qualities is its elucidation of the effects of the factions that rent Indian groups and the way alcohol destroyed lives and plans. Silverman replaces the traditional story of early Indian defiance followed by inevitable defeat and degradation with a story in which Indians assimilate new cultural tools and continue their struggle to carve out a place for themselves in the emerging American order.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781501700750
Publisert
2010
Utgiver
Vendor
Cornell University Press
Vekt
454 gr
Høyde
235 mm
Bredde
155 mm
Dybde
18 mm
Aldersnivå
01, UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet

Biographical note

David J. Silverman is Professor of History at George Washington University. He is the coauthor of Ninigret, Sachem of the Niantics and Narragansetts, also from Cornell, and author of Faith and Boundaries.