Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County, New York, 1712–1732 ed. by Kees-Jan Waterman, J. Michael Smith

Abstract

647 Book Reviews Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County, New York, 1712–1732. Edited by Kees-Jan Waterman and J. Michael Smith. Translated by KeesJan Waterman. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2013, 327 pages, $34.95 Cloth. Reviewed by Jason R. Sellers, University of Mary Washington Scholars studying economic exchange between Europeans and Indians in colonial New York are frequently challenged by the fragmentary nature of their sources. Kees-Jan Waterman, a specialist in Indian-colonist relations in New Netherland and early New York, and J. Michael Smith, an independent scholar who has published work on Munsee-Delaware peoples in the Hudson River Valley, aim to address that challenge with Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County, New York, 1712–1732. Recording just over two thousand transactions on 243 accounts maintained by approximately 200 Indians, this annotated translation of an account book recently uncovered in the New York Public Library’s Philip John Schuyler Papers opens numerous interpretive spaces and provides a starting point for scholars of cultural exchange in early eighteenth-century New York to address them. Despite the usual view that most Indians left Ulster County after the Esopus Wars of 1659–60 and 1663–64, Waterman and Smith point out that identifiable Munsee settlements persisted until around 1750, albeit increasingly under English jurisdiction.The last known land sales by Esopus Indians occurred as late as 1767 and 1770. Other Munsees returned regularly to ratify treaties, meet with colonial officials, exercise reserved hunting and fishing rights, and attend the burials of relatives who remained in the area. It was that continued presence in Ulster County that provided the trade opportunities recorded in the account book, and which helps explain some of the patterns that emerge in studying it. 648 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY A substantial introduction explains that while in good physical condition , the ledger is impossible to attribute to a single individual, or to confidently attach to a particular locale (though it seems to have been kept first at Kingston and later at what became Rochester). Though entries throughout the account book were written mostly in Dutch, the section recording Indian trade was kept by a different hand than the rest of the accounts in the ledger, which is what the editors have separated for consideration here. This is a volume clearly designed to foster further research, and the editors present their information in a variety of forms. Readers have the option of perusing the narrative summary of patterns the editors have identified in the trade, including their extensive notes and cross-references; turning to the seventeen tables that compile data to illustrate those patterns; or turning to the annotated English translation of the account book’s section on Indian trade that comprises the bulk of the present volume. What readers will find, especially if they follow along in the introduction footnotes and ledger annotations, is a record of trade with Esopus and Wappinger Indians that built slowly for a decade before peaking from 1724–26, then slowly declining until 1732, when the ledger ends. With constant comparisons to an account book of similar vintage kept in Albany—edited and translated in Waterman’s previous To Do Justice to Him & Myself: Evert Wendell’s Account Book of the Fur Trade with Indians in Albany, New York, 1695–1726 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Lightning Rod Press, 2008)—and with extensive cross references to other sources and existing studies, the editors identify a number of trends that invite further scrutiny. The overall impression that emerges of the trade is one of local, yearround activity. The editors note that the absence of a distinct trading season in the Ulster County records contrasts with Albany’s marked trade season, suggesting that [WHILE] Indians who lived at a distance traveled to Albany to trade, [WHILE/BUT] those active in Ulster County were either permanent residents or regular visitors. While textiles, alcohol, and ammunition comprised the bulk of goods for which Indians traded in both regions, other items unique to each locale reinforce the local nature of the Ulster County trade. Indians trading at Albany received money more often, while those in Ulster County received more food items. The editors suggest that this may reflect...