Colin G. CallowayRezensionen

In great condition with plastic wrapping and purchased at Schertz Library Store.

North Country Captives
Colin Calloway has contributed so much to the understanding of the Abenaki people and one of the best examples is North Country Captives, his collection of Selected Narratives of Indian Captivity from Vermont and New Hampshire. He has put a spotlight on the clash of multiple cultures from different continents during one critical but nearly-forgotten part of our history. He has collected not one story, but eight stories as told by the people involved. This last part is the most important and the most informative. Calloway further organized them in chronological order which is also telling, as we see the progression through the French and Indian Wars moving through the eventual start of the American Revolution. The first stories are about abductions by the Abenaki, aligned with the French, and the last two by the Caughnawaga (Mohawk), allied with the British.

Indian raids had been conducted since at least fifty years previous to the first story, when my two relatives (that I know of) were involved in raids. One of them, Mary Neff, survived, but Daniel Hudson did not. It is important to understand the back story, that the Native Americans were manipulated by both colonial forces, the French and the British, to fight their battles for them, bribing them and rewarding them for driving the interlopers off their claimed territories, requesting scalps as proof when they doubted the numbers allegedly killed. The Natives were on board with this fight as the new settlers had already proved their savagery during the previous century, driven them off or tricked them out of their ancestral lands, and taken them as slaves before enough African imports were available. Third party storytellers used some facts and some embellishments to justify their actions across the new continent for the next 300 years. Cotton Mather, firebrand preacher, was only one who framed the struggle for the land as a battle between good and evil, between God and the devil(s), finding new and creative epithets to drive home his point and incite retaliation. The Natives already had a tradition of adopting captives when one of their own had been killed. This was viewed as a horrific thing to the colonials who could see nothing of value in the native culture, but Native American grief at having to give up their adoptees after negotiation and the reluctance of many captives to rejoin their “white” families gives us an indication of some different realities. This relinquishment of adoptees is sometimes played out in our courts today, usually without the racial overtones.

But back to the book. Calloway starts each narrative with a short summary of events and background and allows the narrator to tell his or her own story in their own words. I found them all to be compelling with several facts being obvious: The captors did their best to care for their prizes, perhaps because they were kind, as is mentioned in some of the narratives, but also because they might be used in prisoner exchanges between the French and English. One captive was taken from New England to Canada, to England and back to New England again. The victims who were killed on the spot seemed to be those who offered the most resistance or who might slow them down or cause them to be discovered by pursuing family members: the men, the sick, the elderly or infants, as captives were reminded that they would be killed if they made any noise to alert those who sought to rescue them. One woman even gave birth in the first few days of the retreat northward and the child survived to adulthood. The captives were given more food and the best food although they deemed the Indian food disgusting. We don’t have written records as to what the Indians thought of colonial settlers’ food. What is most striking in the book is the much worse treatment captives usually received when they were turned over to the European governors and confined in their jails, awaiting prisoner exchange or ransom. It is important to remind ourselves that food, warmth and sanitation were luxuries that were usually not provided in prisons at that time, even to “their own kind”. Days were consumed with finding enough food, creature comfort of any sort, and finding ways to escape. If their journal entries are boring, it is because their lives were not exciting, as many who have been incarcerated or quarantined can affirm. A notation of the weather was not just an entry; it was a declaration that you were still alive and still fighting for survival. One man tells of his plot to escape, as intriguing as any World War II narrative. Unsung heroes in these stories are Nehemiah How, Phineas Stevens and Colonel Pieter Schuyler.

The story ends with mixed results for the captives, some of whom went on to live long lives and others who had less happy endings. It is a somewhat sad ending for the Abenaki, though. I have been to The Village and to Trois Rivieres in Canada where captives were taken. The Abenaki have not been recognized as a sovereign nation by the US government due in part to their being more nomadic in nature than the Iroquois and unable to point to a single location in the US as their ancestral land. Their alliance with the French went against them too, since they had never forgotten their friendship with and loyalty to Samuel De Champlain 150 years before these narratives. Coming back from the brink of cultural extinction, they are now renewing their language and traditions and are now recognized as one of the First Nations (Premieres Nations) in Canada. If you have an interest in reading modern stories of personal tragedy and triumph from the people who survived (“In my own words…”, “My story…” etc), especially if you are able to put yourself into that long-ago time and foreign context, this is both spellbinding and enlightening. As for my own family, the aftermath of the American Revolution brought like-minded people from every background together and today I am proud to claim English, French and Abenaki ancestry as many of my North Country neighbors do.

The point of this book is to demonstrate that Native American tribes and European settlers in the 13 colonies had much more extensive interactions than has been traditionally depicted. The author piles up enormous records of trade, treaty negotiations, and other delegations that visited major cities (New York, Albany, Charleston, and especially Philadelphia) throughout the 18th century. THe book is amply rupposted by scholarly research as accounts are drawn from diaries, popular press, official government documents and other sources. Details emerge reflecting the very different expectations the two groups had of each other and the conflicting motives they may have had for engaging in these interactions. The account seems to be even handed, at least as far as I can determine. Neither the colonists nor the natives are either villified nor are any groups entirely immune from criticism. It is a picture of cultures clashing with different economic needs, different legal traditions, and different relational concerns. It has been a very useful read in regard to the political issues but it is also very rich in details that illuminate some of the social history of the groups involved.

This is an ok book for what it does; however one thing that it isn't, and the title appears to suggest that this is a detailed narrative of the battle of the 4th November 1791. It isn't, and in fact if one is looking for that one would be better served looking for the journals of some of the participants (Sargent, Denny, or the Swearingen-Bedinger papers to name several). It is a decent overview of the period, however and it has some good maps to give an overall sense of the direction of the campaigns (it includes more than just St Clair's), however it is more of an overview as opposed to anything else.

LOTS of information. Some what dry and difficult to read.

A tremendously well researched study about George Washington's dealings with Native Americans over the course of his lifetime with all its warts. With time there is a growing knowledge of and respect for the two sides for each other. At first, Washington sees them mainly as a blockage to land he covets in the western territories and he sees them as savages. As time passes he mellows after having many meetings with tribal leaders and really is trying to protect them from the encroachment of white settlement. (less than successful) Ultimately the natives always hate the settlers but most love George Washington.

In The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation, Colin G. Calloway argues, “Indian nations figured alongside European nations in the founding fathers’ thinking about the current and future state of the union. Indian leaders were adept at playing on American fears of British and Spanish backing for Indian resistance. Debates over the sovereignty of the United States and struggles over the extent and limits of federal authority and states’ rights centered on Indian treaties, and Indian issues, wars, and land policies were critical in developing a strong central government” (pg. 4). Calloway works to counter a gap in the historiography, which primarily overlooks the role of Native Americans in Washington’s affairs due to the historical and cultural blinders of manifest destiny, which cast Indian lands as western lands. In this, he argues, “Restoring Indian people and Indian lands to the story of Washington goes a long way toward restoring them to their proper place in America’s story” (pg. 14). He also works to portray the role of diplomacy with Native American tribes, regarded as sovereign nations on a continent with multiple claims to sovereignty by American Indians, Americans, the Spanish, the French, and the English. Calloway also engages with the contradictions inherent in Washington’s legacy, writing, “Washington’s dealings with Indian people and their land do him letter credit, but on the other hand his achievement is creating a nation from a fragile union of states is more impressive when we appreciate the power and challenges his Indian world presented” (pg. 13). Calloway’s work is not a biography of Washington, but rather of his time and world. He plays a vital role in correcting an oversight in the historiography, much like Pekka Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire recast the historiography of western expansion to examine the Comanche as a political force in the West.

The history of Native Americans in the West until the age of Lewis and Clark.

A well written and well sourced account of "St. Clair's Defeat" and its aftermath, though I would have liked a bit more about the scandals which ensued after the defeat, and about the news coverage of the debacle around the young country. Still, an excellent overview of the matter, and well worth a read.

An interesting look at post-French/Indian (Seven Years) War look of North America, specifically how it entailed in the year after 1763 with the Native American (Indian) tribes and the British (and leaving French).

Bit slow, bit of a slog to read, but was very interesting. Dry writing, but informative, knowledgeable information. Lots of sourcing, citations, etc. It often gets lost in thinking about the timeframe (pre-Revolution/American Revolution, 1740s-1780s), but there was much more to North America than just the thirteen colonies. Canada, Havana, Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida, West Florida, the interior (Louisiana), really all of the islands in the Caribbean (Cuba, St. Dominque, Puerto Rico, etc, etc, etc).

It also gets lost just how much the Seven Years War effected, and basically was the main catalyst for the American Revolution. How the Treaty of Peace (Paris) paved the way for the American Revolution (similar to how the Treaty of Versailles paved the way for World War II).

Very interesting and fascinating book, just extremely dry.

Through and well-written account of the disastrous defeat of Arthur Sinclair's U.S. army (the only field army at the time) by the Miami Confederacy. This account begins in 1790 with background on the Native/US rivalry for the Ohio country, and covers Harmer's and Sinclair's defeats and Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers It makes a serious effort to be or balanced than earlier accounts, giving, so far as evidence exists, the Native as well as the U.S. side, and on the U.S. side making clear that over-eager land speculators and corrupt army supplies contributed as much to the defeat as any alleged cowardice of the soldiers.

Using the first major defeat of the U. S. Army against a confederation of tribes from the "Ohio" region as a backdrop for the relations between the new nation and the Native population of the recently acquired Northwest Territories, Calloway presents a well research and documented story. Author has a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.½

Remember the old days when sometimes if you really wanted just one awesome song, you had to buy an entire album by the band in question? And you always thought, "Well, if I like this song by them, maybe some of the other ones are good, too?" And the album always, ALWAYS turned out to consist of that one really good song, one song that turned out to be pretty good, and ten tracks of boringness?

(Someone please explain to my younger readers what an "album" is. Thank you.)

Okay, this book wasn't exactly like that. But I did only buy it for the captivity narrative of Susanna Johnson. Years ago I read the YA novel Calico Captive, and the author included a little afterword about how she based her book on a true story of a woman and her family being captured by Indians. So I looked and looked and finally found a collection of such captivity narratives that included the one I wanted.

And it turns out that her story was really interesting, and one other story in the collection was pretty interesting, and the rest of them were okay but frankly kind of hard to read. Especially the one that was a diary, and some of the entries were just one or two sentences, and some of them were really boring things like, "The Sabbath day. It rained at night," and some of them shouldn't have been boring given what they were describing but still were, like, "Had the news of the Indians killing and taking four of our people." And I'm all, "Dude, I know you're a pioneer and all, but couldn't you show a little more emotion than that, considering what just happened?"

So I wouldn't recommend this to the general reading audience. I'll be reviewing Calico Captive soon, and will try to give more details as to just how closely the author stuck to the truth.

Anyone out there who has subscribed to the myth that Native Americans lived 'only seasonally to hunt' in Vermont, disabuse yourselves of it immediately and forever. For the Western tribes of the Abenaki Vermont was home for millenia. Although I have known (somewhat) better for twenty or thirty years I've never read the story of the dispossession of these tribal people from their lands, and it is a sorry one indeed - of betrayal, genocide and woe. I had underestimated the extent of the struggle, in Vermont, often violent and ugly, of the white people to take the land for themselves and ignore the native claims. This is 'history' in its traditional form and, to paraphrase what a character says in a novel I've been reading: history is the story of people killing each other in various ways. It is a necessary part of the story to tell and it doesn't make for comfortable or easy reading. Calloway carefully builds the picture of the incidents, battles, confrontations, withdrawals and returns, putting together the information that he has gleaned out of British, American and French documents, mostly military. He is adamant in his descriptions of the bewilderment and confusion and heartbreak of the Abenaki as, no matter what choices they make or who they ally themselves with promises are broken outright or ignored once the desired outcome is achieved. After the formation of the United States and the entry of Vermont as the 14th state, the 'red men' claims to lands for their own are dismissed. They are called vagrants and gypsies and the myth of their seasonal use of Vermont was born. In truth they did move around seasonally, but not over large areas. Family bands lived on hunting lands that were traditionally theirs and did so for a thousand years and more. And yet the pressures of immigration from a restless population in Europe and the explosive burst of growth in population already here, doomed the Eastern tribes ultimately. It was never going to be fair, and Calloway doesn't have to say it. His goal is to outline how it came about. Many many Abenaki have never left, but quietly live and lived in communities they may be aware of as 'theirs' but do not make themselves known. Like the Spanish marrano, they have learned to live one way, while cherishing another way in their hearts. I can't in good conscience give more stars as it is dry dry reading, but it is 5 star scholarship. ****

Excellent overview of effect of Revolution on Indian Tribes

Very detailed - should be required reading in Native American history

Mercifully short but good

In American history, the year 1763 was a watershed. With the treaty ending the French and Indian War signed in Paris began a series of consequential decisions which seem to inexorably lead to the American Revolution. Historian Colin Calloway, professor at Dartmouth College, uses this momentous year to consider the broad context of life in the British controlled sections of North America, which he construes as a tipping point for the region.

In "The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America," a volume in the Oxford University Press series, "Pivotal Moments in American History," Calloway offers a panoramic snapshot of the various political and cultural interests in and around the British colonies in North America. In particular, he depicts a highly politicized environment in which several groups were simultaneously trying to gain the upper hand in the wake of the transfer of power – at least on paper – of the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River from French control to British.

While others have described the variety of impulses among the American colonists, particularly those who hoped to settle across the mountains, few have offered much insight into the actions and maneuverings of the native Indian nations living in those lands. Calloway, with his expertise in Native American history, remedies this to offer a sophisticated and complex portrait of a geography disputed by American colonists, British, French, Spanish, and several Native American tribes. To use an anachronistic comparison (though one which seems to inform Calloway's analysis), the Cold War-like balance of power between the French and the British vanished after the 1763 treaty, creating a vacuum in which alliances shifted uneasily and with uncertainty.

If the text is occasionally a little dense, this is mostly due to Calloway's goal of offering a portrait that is both comprehensive and condensed. The amount of information, including a fair number of biographical stories of key participants, presented in this slim volume is breathtaking. For those interested in the immediate prologue to the American Revolutionary War, this book is among a handful of necessary volumes, alongside those of Bernard Bailyn and the like.

Colin Calloway begins this book with a look at societies that were once thriving communities but are now nothing more than abandoned and often overlooked sites. He ends his book by warning that our communities could end in the same way if we do not learn from the history of past peoples. In between these pages, the author utilizes vast amounts of sources to tell the stories of the Indians who lived and died in the American West. He shows that the American West was constantly changing. There were battles between Indian tribes, with the Spanish, the French, the English, and the Americans, who all set out in one way or another to control the Indians through religion, trade, promises, and land use. He shows that they were not always one sided battles and that the Indians were often as cunning and brave as any of these other groups. They put up a good fight, but in the end, they were overcome by disease and the overwhelming number of people moving into their lands. Calloway shows how the west has always been in a constant state of change and that change is still occurring today. There is so much good information in this book. Calloway gathered sources from many people, and shows as many angles to the stories as he can. Unfortunately, most of history is written by the winners, and the Indians in most cases did not win. Still, he includes numerous citations from the Indian peoples. This book is nothing like what we are taught in our watered down American History books, and it is somewhat refreshing to get a better idea of what really happened in the American West.

The lead up to the American Revolution - but not the way we learned it in school. Very interesting.

Great selection of documents pertaining to Native American history. Calloway's introductions are sometimes overbearing (I imagine him muttering 18th century obscenities whenever he talks about perfidious negotiators), but he provides useful context, succinctly.

Interesting overview of the complexities and lack of cohesive positions on British and American sides by Indian tribes during the American Revolution.

Interesting but not revelatory.½

The American Revolution in Indian Country covers a lot of ground - from Abenakis in Canada to communities in Florida, from midwestern communities buffered from the colonists by other nations to residents of Stockbridge in Massachusetts. The book is organized by Native American community and not by timeline, which shouldn't be a problem if you know the standard story of the American revolution and its general timeline. There are several great maps which help keep the confusion of migration and land cessions to a minimum.

The book succeeds in presenting how many different communities tried to preserve their own interests in the American Revolution. It's spotty in giving you a sense of the source material that lead to this conclusion. I'm not saying there aren't any source notes (there are many) - but unless you follow every footnote and look the source up in the Library of Congress, sometimes it's hard to tell whether Calloway is quoting primary or secondary sources, and on which side of the conflict the source might have been.

Here's an example: p. 194 (Chota: Cherokee beloved town).
"After this day," wrote Stuart, "every young Fellow's face in the Overhill Towns appeared Blackened, and nothing was now talked of but War." Stuart and Cameron continued to argue against war and the principal chiefs agreed, but the warriors were impatient and suspicious of their intentions. [46]

The footnote cites North Carolina Colonial Records and Documents of the American Revolution 1770-1783. I imagine one is the source of the quotation, but is the other the source for that mysterious claim of impatience and suspicion? How is that translated into a written document?

Sometimes Calloway is quite deft at working the source material into the narrative, which makes it all the more obvious when you read a few pages and wonder from where all the information came.

For most readers this is a pretty minor complaint, and the book is a great addition to the story of the revolution told in most K-12 classrooms, especially for anyone who doesn't live in Lexington or Concord, and wonders what was going on in their area. Knowing more about the American/Indian conflicts during the revolution is also a necessary prerequisite for understanding American policy towards Native American nations in the 1800s.