Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, and the First Nations: The Treaties of 1736-62 by Susan Kalter

Abstract

Book Reviews 159 is an often-overlooked aspect of military operations that is nevertheless integral to the successful conduct of any field campaign. Hoffman provides a detailed account of the origins of the First Michigan Engineers, as well as its recruitment of craftsmen, artisans, and engineers in the state. He highlights the important service these men provided in the western theater, from the early campaigns inTennessee to the celebrated march of Sherman's armies through Georgia and the Carolinas in 1864-1865. The Michigan engineers not only had to deal with enemy troops but also had to build and repair bridges, roads, railroads, and forts to protect the vital links in the lines of supply and communication that maintained the Union forces in the field. During Sherman's march, however, the First Michigan turned from creating to destroying; it was charged with disrupting the railroads that supported Sherman's opponents. The regiment was one of the first units in theWest to serve closely with African American infantry; Hoffman notes that it did so effectively and well. The same can be said of the author's efforts to personalize the First Michigan Engineers. His extensive use of diaries, letters, and military records associated with the regiment enable him to tell the story of a little known but valuable unit clearly and thoroughly, thereby i?uminating a forgotten chapter in themilitary history of theWolverine State. Theodore J. Zeman Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia Susan Kalter, ed. Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, and theFirst Nations: The Treaties of 1736-62. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Pp. 472. Illustrations. Index. Glossary. Maps. Notes. Cloth, $45.00. Susan Kalter, associate professor of American as well as Native American literature at the University of Illinois at Normal, has written an introduction and annotated an edited reprint of facsimiles published in a limited 1938 edition by Julian Boyd and Carl Van Doren. Kalter also provides a glossary of people and Indian communities involved in the treaty negotiations the book examines. Although she never fully explains why Franklin reprinted these treaties, Kalter acknowledges that he had his own motives for publicizing them. Kalter tells the reader at the beginning of her introduction that Indian treaties were one of the first literary forms inAmerica, reiterating the opinion of William N. Fenton and Lawrence Wroth. Many of the treaties reprinted in this book deal with the consequences of the 160 Michigan Historical Review "Walking Purchase" of 1737 that defrauded the Delaware Indians, one of the great travesties in Native American history. The dominant presence in the documents is the story of the Iroquois right through the French and Indian War. The author shows the Iroquois to be a highly adaptable people who modified their condolence ceremony for diplomatic use in dealing with the Europeans. Kalter's work criticizes scholars who challenge the idea that the Iroquois governmental model was adopted by the framers of the United States Constitution, sometimes forcing the evidence (see her dismissal of negative evidence about the Constitutional Convention on p. 42, n. 57). She is an apologist for Franklin and ignores the award winning work of Timothy Shannon that deals with Franklin's role at the Albany Congress of 1754. She argues that Franklin's harsh words describing Native Peoples had different, less offensive meanings in the eighteenth century than they do today. Yet Kalter avoids discussing or even mentioning Franklin's significant land speculation in Indian country! Franklin also held prejudices against other groups, including Germans and Africans, which mostly go unmentioned. Moreover, Kalter's analysis of Can(n)asatego, who she claims was not an Onondaga sachem officially sanctioned to speak as a diplomat, ignores the substantial treatment of him byWilliam Starna. As someone who values and employs oral traditions in his teaching, research, and work as a historical consultant in land-claims litigation on behalf of the Six Nations, I find Kalter's reliance on this methodology somewhat uncritical (see the credence she gives to Barbara Mann's calculation of the exact century when the League of the Iroquois was founded [pp. 1, 38, n. 2]. The Haudenosaunee have a great history. They do not need scholars tomake unsubstantiated claims. Laurence M. Hauptman SUNYNewPaltz...