The Idea of Peace in North America Until 1780

Abstract

Abstract This chapter offers an overview of efforts to cultivate and maintain peace in America from the late prehistoric era through the early republic. Prior to European contact, Native peoples in eastern North America developed their own ideas of peace and peacemaking. During the early seventeenth century, Native protocols governed peacemaking between Indian nations and the English colonists, but conflicts over land often rendered peace untenable. By the late seventeenth century, the colonists’ land greed and English demands for Indian subordination had altered Native ideas of peace and resulted in a world characterized by conflict rather than cooperation. This chapter will examine specific events to assess the motivations of peacemakers in North America, examine the various forces that sustained and/or subverted peace, and uncover the possibilities by which peace could have more successfully endured.