Arrival Of Europeans Research Articles

Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn by Jean R. Soderlund

Reviewed by: Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn by Jean R. Soderlund Katherine Grandjean (bio) Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn jean r. soderlund Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015 252pp. On the cover of Jean R. Soderlund’s book, there is a map. It was created in 1670 by Augustine Herrman, a merchant, gazing north from his manor in Maryland.1 Black rivers, creeks, and tributaries bloom across the space, like spider veins. Indian towns are tucked in along riverbanks. Herrman labeled this space “NEW JARSY,” but he acknowledged, too, that “at present,” it was “Inhabited Only or most By Indians.” This was the homeland of the Lenape people. They lived in a web of unfortified towns, across territory in what is now central and southern New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and part of Delaware. At the heart of their country was the Lenapewihittuck, the river that later became known as the Delaware. Lenapes, too, would later become known as “Delawares,” but that is not how they referred to themselves prior to contact with Europeans. Lenapes spoke an Algonquian language, Unami. The word Lenape, in their language, means “original” or “common” person. Lenape country was furrowed with great paths and intricate waterways that connected its people not only to each other but to others, as well. They were closely tied to the Munsees, who lived to the north. They also maintained relationships, though not always peaceful, with the Susquehannocks, an Iroquoian group to their west. And after Henry Hudson steered the Halve Maen into a river just north of Lenape country in 1609, Lenapes came to know Europeans. First, Dutch, then Swedes, Finns, and English. It is the saga of Lenape country in this early era of colonization that most interests Soderlund. Soderlund’s book tells the story of Lenape country before the arrival of William Penn, and all the change he brought with him, in 1681. Too [End Page 482] often, she writes, histories of the Delaware Valley begin in the 1680s, when Charles II granted Penn his charter (and Pennsylvania was born). Not only does the “Pennsylvania legend” obscure the earlier chapters of Lenape history, prior to the arrival of Europeans. It also ignores the “sixty-five years of exchange, conflict, accommodation, and alliance between the Natives and the Dutch, Swedes, Finns, and English” that preceded Penn (4). This same “founding myth,” she contends, too heavily credits Penn for “form[ing] an open, tolerant society that dealt honestly and amicably with the Lenapes and other Natives” (4). In Soderlund’s view, Pennsylvania’s tolerance rested upon an earlier history of peacemaking and plurality—led by Lenapes. Lenape Country is a clear and engaging historical narrative that roundly surveys the experiences of those who lived in the region during the seventeenth century. Although her focus is on the Lenape people, Soderlund is deeply interested in their intercultural relationships. Her book dwells on those encounters more extensively than other recent studies of the region, like Amy Schutt’s Peoples of the River Valley or Mark Thompson’s The Contest for the Delaware Valley. Throughout the book, Soderlund subtly demonstrates how Lenapes used diplomacy, alliances, and even limited violence to maintain “self-determination” and to protect their interests. Each of Soderlund’s chapters adds to her portrait of Lenape country in the seventeenth century as a kind of “middle ground,” in which natives and Europeans learned to live with, and accommodate, one another (10). The book opens with a sketch of Lenape society in the early seventeenth century: egalitarian, open, and peaceful. Sachems ruled by consent, not by force. Unlike several other native groups (not to mention Europeans), Lenapes “did not fight wars to enslave people” (12). Coupling, and uncoupling, was fairly unrestricted. Men and women were free to form and flee relationships, as it suited them. Peace was paramount. But if the Lenape people “preferred peace,” Soderlund observes, they did sometimes resort to war in order to “protect their rights” (35). They engaged in limited wars to maintain control of their territory, especially when Europeans sought to expand their influence beyond the realm of trade. One example is the 1631 attack at Swanendael, a Dutch settlement...

Introduction: Environment and Environmentalism in Kentucky

Introduction:Environment and Environmentalism in Kentucky Richard W. Judd (bio) and David Stradling (bio) Let us begin with the admission that the state is an imperfect unit of study in environmental history. True, natural features define the contours of Kentucky—the Ohio River to the north, the Appalachian Mountains to the east, and the Mississippi to the west—but these features define geopolitical boundaries rather than ecological ones. In much of American history, the Appalachian Mountains separated east from west, but in environmental history the chain united those regions as much as it divided them. The mountain bioregion contains one of the richest, most diverse ecosystems in North America, one that connects Kentucky to West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina and beyond. The Ohio River, a critical boundary in American history, connects the stories of seven states in a single watershed. In human history the river divided the nation; in ecological history it has united a far-flung geography. In other words, political and ecological boundaries rarely overlap. This is clearly the case in Kentucky, where the state seldom contains the environmental history that runs through it. Still, both of us have written state-based environmental histories.1 To do so is to emphasize the ways that state boundaries matter. Certainly [End Page 125] state and local policies are critical in environmental history—to conservation efforts, the creation of recreational opportunities, in regulating pollution, and in protecting human health, among many other policy areas. For example, in Kentucky, state regulation is essential to understanding the history of coal mining and its myriad environmental consequences. Perhaps just as important, the state serves as a cultural unit, one to which residents attach some part of their identity. The state’s environment matters here, too, as Kentuckians express pride in the commonwealth’s great beauty and natural abundance. Consider the imagery of the Bluegrass, the lore of “the mountains,” even the expansive state park system—all of these environmental features are essential to the state’s self-conception. Just as natural features have helped define the state’s boundaries, they have also helped define the state itself. This special issue of the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society reveals how vibrant the field of environmental history is in the commonwealth. The issue opens with an historiographical essay by Mark Hersey, a southern environmental historian with a special expertise in agricultural history. As Hersey makes clear, environmental history comes from many disciplinary directions. Scholars from a variety of fields—many untrained in the field itself—have migrated from social, cultural, urban, and labor history, among many others. Environmental history research has been conducted by scholars who recognized the futility of trying to understand historical events without accounting for the environments in which they occurred. As Hersey’s essay also makes clear, Kentucky sits at the intersection of many cultural and ecological regions, as is reflected in the historiography itself. Historians working in southern history speak to the state’s plantation past; others have focused on the mountains. The history of the state’s many rivers, including the Ohio, appears ripe for further attention. In “Birth of the Bluegrass: Ecological Transformations in Central Kentucky to 1810,” Andrew P. Patrick offers a new periodization of the ecological history of central Kentucky by telling the deeper history of the region, stretching back to the Fort Ancient culture. Patrick [End Page 126] takes an agroecological approach, viewing cultivated landscapes as modified ecological systems designed and maintained for human benefit. The results reveal a complex story of mutual influence and co-evolution between land and people, where the landscape exists somewhere on a continuum between natural ecosystems and more completely fabricated places like cities. By tracing the history of the landscape back to Fort Ancient swidden practices and using recent archaeological and scientific research to buttress the historical record, Patrick reveals that “the Inner Bluegrass was not a pristine wilderness unsullied by human actions prior to European arrival; instead the land was a dynamic factor” that underwent multiple transformations. By the early nineteenth century, the Bluegrass had become a cradle of American agriculture. Eileen Hagerman’s article, “Water, Workers, and Wealth: How ‘Mr. Peabody’s’ Coal Barge Stripped Kentucky...

Birth of the Bluegrass: Ecological Transformations in Central Kentucky to 1810

Birth of the Bluegrass:Ecological Transformations in Central Kentucky to 1810 Andrew P. Patrick (bio) In 1810, at the age of seventy-six, Daniel Boone visited Kentucky for the first time in more than a decade. He barely recognized the state. Boone told John James Audubon that he “rambled about to see if a deer was still living in the land. But ah! Sir, what a wonderful difference thirty years makes in the country!” Gone were the days when “you would not have walked out in any direction for more than a mile without shooting a buck or a bear. There were then thousands of Buffaloes . . . the land looked as if it never would become poor; and to hunt in those days was a pleasure indeed.”1 The dramatic decline in game animals that Boone lamented was just one of a wide range of transformations that occurred on the land in the decades after white Americans and those they enslaved settled the region. Fields of corn and hemp replaced canebrakes, and savanna-woodlands were repurposed as shaded pastures carpeted by an introduced species known as bluegrass. Buffalo, deer, and turkey populations declined precipitously, while domesticated species such as cattle, horses, and chickens flourished. By 1810, when Boone returned to Kentucky, the Bluegrass region had been converted from its presettlement state into a complex agroecosystem governed by a range of cultural and natural [End Page 155] influences.2 Most interpretations of this transformation emphasize the role of human actors. However, moving beyond the fixation on human influences and recognizing the importance of the ecological context for developments reveals a more complex story.3 In A Sand County Almanac (1949), Aldo Leopold, an intellectual leader of modern environmentalism, used the “cane-lands of Kentucky” as an example of why society needed “an ecological interpretation of history.” He argued that understanding the ecological processes by which introduced bluegrass replaced native vegetation could reshape our view of national history and force a recognition of the connections between environmental and cultural factors. Leopold posited high stakes for the question of central Kentucky plant succession: that the triumph of American settlement west of the Appalachians depended on the biological characteristics of a lowly species of grass. The dramatic implications of this framing made it an effective early example of the promise of environmental history.4 Yet, applying an agroecological lens that views agricultural landscapes [End Page 156] as modified ecological systems designed and maintained for human benefit demonstrates the dynamic, long-term interplay of people and ecology obscured even by Leopold’s attempt to bring the environment into our historical narratives as more than a backdrop. Instead of the pristine wilderness Leopold described, explorers and settlers like Daniel Boone moved through and into a region with a long history of human occupation. Flourishing Native groups played a significant role in shaping the environment for centuries prior to whites’ arrival. The type and scope of ecological change shifted dramatically when Europeans landed on the Atlantic seaboard. Their arrival on the North American coast touched off changes that decimated local Native cultures and altered local environmental conditions long before the first European ventured into the region that became known as the Bluegrass. The next wave of transformation began during the 1770s when white settlers and enslaved African Americans introduced domesticated plant and animal species, new ideas about proper land use, and the labor to enact their visions. The combination helped create a new agroecosystem that applied the ecological productivity of the region to agricultural ends.5 Leopold overlooked the long-term transformations that resulted from evolving relationships between humans and their environment and therefore neglected the influences people had on the landscape prior to European arrival. By drawing on scientific, archaeological, and historical sources, this study aims to trace the dramatic changes in the central Kentucky landscape that occurred both before and after white settlers and those they enslaved created a dynamic agroecosystem designed to sustain and enrich the growing population of the region. In the process a new periodization of the ecological history of central Kentucky emerges.6 Rather than simply dividing early [End Page 157] Kentucky history into two periods—pre- and post-settlement—by utilizing...

Two Peoples, Two Worlds

By the time of the arrival of Europeans in the continent during the second half of the 18th century, the aboriginal tribes that inhabited Australia were under the primeval communal system. Their settlements became an easy conquering for the first aliens. Aborigines of Australia met the invaders quite friendly, providing virtually no resistance and the letters benefited immediately. There appeared a clash of two cultures, two worldviews. On the one hand, the absolute merging with nature, harmonious existence, which for centuries hadnt undergone any changes, and hence a complete tolerance to everything that didnt disturb the established order of the world; on the other hand - consumerist attitude to the land, the desire to get rich, tough competition. Naturally, such polar positions to combine turned out to be impossible, and without a desire to understand the natives who were moved out of their lands, the invaders hastened to announce the aborigines the second-class citizens. Of course, the national cinema couldnt avoid the most urgent problem of the Australian society. But if the first works of filmmakers of the past were focused more on the exotics, mystical rites, dances, daily life of aborigines, in recent years increasingly serious movies are on, and the authors call for a change in attitude to the natives, respect their culture, recognize their equal rights. Analysis of the best movies devoted to these problems, such as Jeddah, Manganese, Fence from rabbits, Charlies land and some others has become the focus of the article. Mainly under the influence of these movies the situation in the country has begun to change for better. Today in the film industry the aborigines have been working, and the movie Samson and Delilah, directed by aborigine Warwick Thornton/ has been a sensation at the Cannes film festival of 2009.

Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America

How might genocide serve as an organizing principle for the history of indigenous and nonindigenous relations in North America? I asked this question as I read this important and timely collection. The essays span a broad chronological and geographical range, enough to recommend the book's possible use in undergraduate courses. What would be gained and what might be obscured by such a framing? These authors are concerned with this very question. They take varied, sometimes-opposing positions on requirements for the term's applicability, its interpretive value, and its practical utility. All agree that genocide happened during European colonization. The “colonial” in the book's title does not reference the prenational period but more broadly the centuries following European arrival in North America. And the title's “North America” refers to the United States and Canada. These chapters originated at a 2012 conference, “Colonial Genocide and Indigenous North America,” held at the University of Manitoba. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (trc) enquiry into Canada's residential schools was underway, and the commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair gave the keynote address in which he applied the label “genocide” to residential schools. The trc commissioners offered a somewhat-qualified position in their 2015 final report where they referenced “cultural genocide,” a terminological shift relevant to the questions engaged by these essays.

The Holocene evolution and geomorphology of a chain of ponds, southeast Australia: Establishing a physical template for river management

Chains of ponds are a discontinuous river type found in Australia. Their unusual morphology, important ecological functions and increasing rarity make them a priority for conservation, and yet very little research has investigated their physical structure, behaviour and evolution. This paper reconstructs the Holocene evolution and environmental history of Crisp's Creek, a headwater chain of ponds in the Southern Tablelands of NSW Australia. This history establishes baseline information on the physical template that can be used to assess a range of other biophysical processes and design appropriate river rehabilitation and management strategies for these rivers. Sedimentary aggradation began in the Late Holocene, at least 3.7–1.3ka, broadly synchronous with aggradation phases at other sites in southeast Australia. Since European arrival in the Nineteenth Century, parts of the river incised, destroying intact ponds and smothering formerly swampy floodplains with post-incision alluvium. However, sections unaffected by incision provide a rare opportunity to examine the evolutionary trajectory of an intact variant of these rivers. This research deepens our understanding of the evolutionary context for contemporary river behaviour as relevant for designing appropriate and effective conservation and rehabilitation strategies for chains of ponds.

The oldest Cenozoic mammal fauna of Europe: implication of the Hainin reference fauna for mammalian evolution and dispersals during the Paleocene

The mammal fauna of Hainin is particularly interesting as the oldest in the Cenozoic of Europe, and the earliest reference level (MP1–5) of the mammalian biochronological scale for the European Palaeogene. This paper summarizes the mammal taxa discovered in the fauna, presents an analysis of the fauna as a whole (relative abundance and species richness), and describes four new eutherians: Belgoryctes thaleri gen. et sp. nov., Eurolestes dupuisi gen. et sp. nov., Quadratodon sigei gen. et sp. nov. and Cingulodon magioncaldai gen. et sp. nov. The assemblage is relatively small (about 400 dental specimens), characterized by a high diversity and abundance of small insectivorous species and very low abundance of ‘plesiadapiforms’ and ‘condylarths’. By comparison with younger European Paleocene faunas, ‘condylarths’ and ‘plesiadapiforms’ became more and more abundant and diverse through the Paleocene but collapsed at the Paleocene–Eocene Boundary. ‘Proteutherians’ declined steadily, while multituberculates remained diverse, although the early Paleocene was populated mainly by Kogaionidae whereas the late Paleocene was dominated by Neoplagiaulacidae. The palaeoecology of Hainin is deduced from the mammal assemblage: the local environment was likely a forested area. Stratigraphically, the Hainin deposits are most likely of late Danian age, and biochronologically its fauna represents a partial equivalent of the North American Torrejonian Land Mammal Age. When compared to younger Paleocene faunas of Europe, the composition of the Hainin fauna reveals that a relatively important intercontinental dispersal of mammals occurred around the Danian–Selandian boundary, roughly corresponding to the Torrejonian–Tiffanian boundary. This dispersal is marked by the arrival in Europe of typically North American taxa such as arctocyonids, plesiadapids and neoplagiaulacid multituberculates. Additional exchanges of lesser magnitude probably also occurred around the Selandian–Thanetian boundary (i.e. during the Tiffanian), although the evidence is less compelling and mainly concerns the plesiadapids Chiromyoides and Plesiadapis.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:A240BAE2-7446-4DBD-A597-7BEFE58447DF

Wetland Loss in the Transition to Urbanisation: a Case Study from Western Sydney, Australia

Together with other signatories of the Ramsar Convention, Australia is obliged to seek to halt wetland loss, which may include farm ponds/dams and other constructed wetlands. Since European arrival in Australia, extensive clearing of native ecosystems for agriculture and urbanisation has resulted in a concomitant loss of natural wetlands. However, there is limited information on changes in physical characteristics of wetlands with the transition to agriculture and urbanisation. In North-western Sydney, we investigated changes in wetland surface area, distance to nearest neighbour (connectivity), and shape complexity with transition from natural to agricultural and urban landscapes. There were significant differences amongst land use types for these three waterbody parameters. Wetlands in natural areas were larger and further apart from each other. Half the wetlands in agricultural and urban landscapes had small surface areas, but wetlands in agricultural areas were closer together, so connectivity for biota was potentially greater. Most wetlands in all land use classes were simple or irregular in shape, though urban areas had a higher proportion of irregular wetlands. We predict that on the current trajectory of increasing urbanisation, native biodiversity will continue to decline unless more emphasis is placed on the importance of wetlands – natural and constructed.

The timing and importance of arboriculture and agroforestry in a temperate East Polynesia Society, the Moriori, Rekohu (Chatham Island)

Abstract Identifying arboriculture and agroforestry in Polynesian Societies has usually relied heavily upon the ethnographic record in the absence of direct archaeological evidence. In this paper we outline a multi-proxy research design, including ethnography, palynology, anthracology, archaeology and a high precision chronology to evaluate arboriculture and agroforestry as components of Moriori subsistence practices before the arrival of Europeans in 1791. The colonisers of Rekohu brought with them a mainland New Zealand endemic tree, Corynocarpus laevigatus, and the technology to propagate the tree in a less than ideal climate and to process its drupe into a storable source of carbohydrate in what was a difficult environment for Polynesian cultivation practices. We also present a conceptual model of forest change due to Moriori fuel selection practices which suggests that Moriori were actively managing these forest spaces for food, fuel, medicine, construction material and as a habitation space, therefore making agroforestry an important component of Moriori subsistence.

Timing of post-European settlement alluvium deposition in SE Australia: A legacy of European land-use in the Goulburn Plains

The timing of landscape change, post-settlement alluvium (PSA) deposition and gully erosion in the southeastern Australian Tablelands remains at the centre of a long-standing discussion over the geomorphological effects of European land-use compared with Aboriginal land-use and climate change. Few quantitative studies date the onset of gully erosion and subsequent PSA deposition in the Tablelands and those that do determine the timing of landscape change for individual catchments rather than across the region. In this study, we present optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) burial ages of swampy meadow (SM) sediment and PSA from six sites spread throughout the Goulburn Plains to place better regional constraints on the timing of landscape change. PSA burial ages at each of our sample sites range between 213 and 81 years before AD 2013, the year during which all samples were collected and measured – corresponding to AD 1800–1932. All measured PSA burial ages post-date European arrival to Australia and are therefore consistent with the generic name and implied age assigned to these sediments before quantitative age estimates were available for them. We suggest, however, that the term ‘post-European settlement alluvium’ may be more appropriate in the Australian context as Aboriginal Australians were living in the Tablelands prior to European arrival. Associations between the occurrence of gully incision and PSA deposition throughout the Tablelands and climatic factors are tenuous, and we suggest that European land-use practices in the region dominate landscape evolution, which had been driven by climatic factors throughout the Holocene.

Ngā Tuakiri o te Tangata: Being Māori in Early Childhood Education

Before the arrival of Europeans in Aotearoa, New Zealand and their subsequent settlement in the 1800s, there was no concept of a Māori identity. Over time, however, as a result of rapid colonisation, Māori became a minority population in New Zealand. Consequently, the term Māori as normal or usual, began to lose its meaning (Webber, 2008), and another meaning began to emerge based on contrasts with the Pākehā settler population. This paper explores the complex and increasingly diverse nature of Māori identities in contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand, including contemporary early childhood contexts. It discusses the importance of negotiating the terrains of cultural knowledge, values and understandings in order to define what ‘being Māori’ means for teachers and children in an increasingly diverse and complex settings.

The Archaeology of West Africa, ca. 800 BCE to 1500 CE

AbstractRecent archaeological research has transformed our understandings of events and processes in West Africa between the beginning of iron‐use ca. 800 BCE and the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century CE, forcing reinterpretations of older narratives that were derived from unbalanced archaeological coverage and over‐privileging of the limited textual record. During this period, economic experimentation and transformation were common in West Africa, as farming economies ultimately expanded over the entire region, while specialization and artistic traditions developed within societies for the production of iron, pottery, textiles, terracotta figurines, glass and copper‐based objects. Some societies actively participated in interregional economies and cultivated the growth of trans‐Saharan trade routes, resulting in the development of large‐scale medieval states and empires (e.g. Ghana and Mali) and initial conversions to Islam in northern locations, while elsewhere societies were more focused on local sources of power and authority. Sociopolitical systems varied significantly throughout the region and included mobile foraging groups, diverse village communities, cities with large palaces, cities without hierarchical leadership and territorial states with no urban centres. This article provides an overview of this exciting era in the African past, calling attention to both regional and local historical trajectories.

Selling Authenticity in the Bamum Kingdom in 1929–1930

In February 1930, Eugene Pittard, the director of the ethnological museum in Geneva, sought to expand his museum’s collections in an unusual manner. Instead of sponsoring an expedition to Africa or acquiring objects from former missionaries, instead of buying from established dealers in ethnographic specimens or the newer galleries that specialized in l’art negre, Pittard wrote to an African man in Africa, a Bamum man named Mose Yeyap (Pittard 1930) (Fig. 1).1 Yeyap was the head of the relatively new artisanat in Foumban, a school and artists’ cooperative founded in 1927, and he was known as a key figure for collectors seeking to acquire works of art from the Bamum kingdom. Pittard’s letter explained that he “would like to assemble ... as true a picture as possible of the population of which you are a part, that is to say of the material life of this population. I am sending you by the same post [a list of] the kinds of things that would be the most interesting to have” (Pittard 1930). Pittard explained pointedly, “I insist on one point: Our intent is to have the oldest objects; those which have not been subjected to European influence.” He then listed for Yeyap the kinds of objects he had in mind: “sculpted wood masks, statues, sculpted horns, etc. ... sculpted drums with carved animals or other designs. Miss Debarge [a physician known both to Pittard and Yeyap] showed me drawings on paper that you made of sculptures. Is it possible to have these sculptures themselves?” (Pittard 1930). Pittard’s letter, of course, epitomizes how European arrogance and fantasy informed the collection of African art in the first decades of the twentieth century. Pittard condescendingly and absurdly schooled Yeyap about Yeyap’s own culture and, by privileging his desire for “the oldest objects,” those supposedly untouched by “European influence,” Pittard revealed his adherence to the chimerical “ideal” of African cultures as isolated in time and space. In a fascinating twist, however, we also have Yeyap’s response to Pittard. Yeyap answered back:

Māori identity development outside of tribal environments

Ethnic identity is formulated through participation and adherence to a shared belief system, knowledge of ancestry, geographical location and associated historical information. The arrival of Europeans in New Zealand and the subsequent changes that ensued, disrupted Māori epistemological systems. Sustained, prolonged and regular contact with other ethnicities influenced the importance of Māori language and culture to Māori people. This article begins by looking at factors that influence identity development before looking specifically at ethnic identity. It will then discuss these factors in relation to the development of a Māori identity. By drawing on research conducted with first-generation urban Māori born in Southland it will conclude by looking at some of the effects of growing up away from tribal areas on the development of their Māori identity.

The medieval to early modern transition in a digital age: new developments relevant to the study of domestic buildings

SUMMARY: Transitions in the archaeological and historical record are difficult to discuss and frequently avoided. The authors briefly outline here how this topic has been studied, particularly in Post-Medieval Archaeology, reviewing differences of approach between European-based archaeologists, who stress continuities with medieval times, and archaeologists in the USA and elsewhere, who commence their studies with the arrival of Europeans. This outline is then used to explore how this earliest formative era of the post-medieval period can be studied via modern digital techniques, using a case study drawing on the study of buildings archaeology to further understanding of the transition. This 50th-anniversary contribution therefore intentionally bridges the old and the new.

Indian Slavery in Colonial America ed. by Alan Gallay

Reviewed by: Indian Slavery in Colonial America ed. by Alan Gallay Jason Herbert (bio) Gallay, Alan, ed. Indian Slavery in Colonial America. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2009. The last half-century has seen an explosion in the understanding of transatlantic slavery. Multiple scholars have worked laboriously to uncover the history of the African diaspora and the experiences of African slaves in the Americas. To a lesser extent, Indian slavery has also been the recent focus of historians and anthropologists, though their stories were often investigated as separate events from those of Africans. Alan Gallay challenges this methodology, claiming that while slavery existed in the Americas long before the arrival of Europeans, the international slave trade dramatically affected indigenous peoples who underwent significant political, cultural, and economic changes. Those who would study slavery without considering the native experience would learn only half-truths. “Indian slavery was not peripheral in the history of Native America,” claims Gallay, “but central to the story” (3). To field the broader questions of indigenous slavery in colonial North America, Gallay has assembled a wide array of scholars whose geographic foci expand from New France along the Eastern seaboard past the Gulf region into Texas. Margaret Ellen Newell begins with an investigation of indigenous slavery in New England, where “Chattel slavery and freedom were at opposite ends of a broad spectrum, and many Indians occupied points along that spectrum in varying degrees of unfreedom” (34). There, concepts of who could be enslaved (nonwhite, mostly African “outsiders”) began to change as the Crown asserted sovereignty over the colony throughout the seventeenth century. Indians, once considered “outsiders,” became legally protected “insiders.” However, new forms of forced servitude arose and many Indians were unfree well into the eighteenth century. C. S. Everett suggests a reexamination of colonial Virginia, particularly Bacon’s Rebellion, in which Nathaniel Bacon Jr. tussled with his cousin, Governor William Berkeley, for control of the colony. Everett points to eyewitness and participant accounts that claim the fight was never a rebellion—it was an Indian war. However, an even larger battle loomed in South Carolina, with a group formed in reaction to slave trades, known as the Yamasee. [End Page 709] No colony experienced the Native slave trade more than South Carolina. From 1670 until the early 1700s, tens of thousands of American Indians were enslaved at the behest of Carolina traders. Alan Gallay observes South Carolina’s entrance into the Indian slave trade. While the trade did not originate in the colony, Carolinians expanded its practice with Native Americans in opposition to the wishes of the lord proprietors, who planned on African slavery, but abhorred the practice being transferred onto indigenes. In defiance of their lords, slave traders created their own moral rationalizations to justify their actions. Joseph Hall studies Apalachicola (proto-Creek) attempts to withstand the English slave trade. In the face of such a powerful force, the small community had a decision to make: trade or be traded (148). To do so, Apalachicolas reached out to native neighbors to broker an alliance with the English and negotiate Apalachicola security. Along with the Yamasee, they became the dominant slave trading partners with Charles Town at the turn of the eighteenth century. Doing so finally gave the Apalachicolas a measure of security previously unknown against native adversaries but subjected them to the violent mood swings of Carolina. Apalachicola survival came at the cost of their Southern neighbors, the Apalachees. Jennifer Baszile notes that despite their problems with neighbors, Apalachees suffered under an increasingly oppressive relationship with Spanish officials that approached slavery. Under the repartimiento system, colonial Spaniards forced native workers to labor without pay. The sabana system was another version of de facto slavery in which some Apalachee men were coerced into becoming full-time farmers working without compensation for missionaries. Finally, young men and women were compelled to work on colonial ranches without being allowed to return home. Many Apalachees struggled with these new concepts of unfree labor and openly questioned the nature of their alliance with Spain. Denise I. Bossy describes the Indian slave trade as “an uneasy partnership between select Indian communities and colonial traders motivated by their mutual desire for economic...

Migration, Population Composition and Long Run Economic Development: Evidence from Settlements in the Pampas

This paper analyses the impact of population composition on long run economic development, by studying European migration to Argentina during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1914). I use an instrumental variables (IV) approach that assigns immigrants to counties by interacting two sources of variation: the availability of land for settlement and the arrival of Europeans over time. Counties with historically higher shares of European population in 1914 have higher per-capita GDP 80 years later. I show that this long run effect is linked to the higher level of human capital that immigrants brought to Argentina. I show that Europeans raised literacy rates in the receiving counties, and that high-skilled Europeans played an important role in the onset of industrialization, owned most of the industrial establishments, and provided the majority of the industrial labour force.

The Unattainable Mediterranean: Arrested Clandestine Odysseys in Sefi Atta's “Twilight Trek” and Marie NDiaye's <em>Trois femmes puissantes</em>

Sub-Saharan African aspiring migrants pursuing their clandestine odysseys through the Sahara toward the Mediterranean seem far removed from the figure of the upwardly mobile migrant paradigmatized by postcolonial theory. The attempt to migrate illegally represents a very precarious and time-consuming form of mobility, where the itinerary is subject to continuous revision and reaching the destination is never obvious. The present article analyzes Sefi Atta’s short story “Twilight Trek” (2009) and the third part of Marie NDiaye’s triptych Trois femmes puissantes (2010) and their representations of these vulnerable African odysseys in which the climax of the migratory endeavor, arrival in Europe, remains out of the protagonists’ reach. By focusing on tropes pertaining to identity, mobility, slavery, and storytelling, this article draws attention to the manner in which the text corpus conveys the idea of the precariousness of the arrested migratory endeavor and the limits set to the mobile position of the underprivileged travelers.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN THE EYES OF THE ALLIES

As Woodrow Wilson traveled across the Atlantic to negotiate the peace after World War I, Theodore Roosevelt died in Long Island. His passing launched a wave of commemoration in the United States that did not go unrivaled in Europe. Favorable tributes inundated the European press and coursed through the rhetoric of political speeches. This article examines the sentiment of Allied nations toward Roosevelt and argues that his posthumous image came to symbolize American intervention in the war and, subsequently, the reservations with the Treaty of Versailles, both endearing positions to the Allies that fueled tributes. Historians have long depicted Woodrow Wilson's arrival in Europe as the most celebrated reception of an American visitor, but Roosevelt's death and memory shared equal pomp in 1919 and endured long after Wilson departed. Observing this epochal moment in world history from the unique perspective of Roosevelt's passing extends the already intricate view of transnational relations.

Fire regime and vegetation change in the transition from Aboriginal to European land management in a Tasmanian eucalypt savanna

Using pollen and charcoal analysis we examined how vegetation and fire regimes have changed over the last 600 years in the Midlands of Tasmania. Sediment cores from seven lagoons were sampled, with a chronology developed at one site (Diprose Lagoon) using 210Pb and 14C dating. Statistical contrasts of six cores where Pinus served as a marker of European settlement in the early 19th Century and showed significant changes in pollen composition following settlement with (a) influx of ruderal exotic taxa including Plantago lanceolata L., Brassicaceae, Asteraceae (Liguliflorae) and Rumex, (b) increase in pollen of the aquatics Myriophyllum spp. and Cyperaceae, (c) a decline in native herbaceous pollen taxa, including Chenopodiaceae and Asteraceae (Tubuliflorae) and (d) a decline in Allocasuarina and an initial decline and then increase of Poaceae. The presence of Asteraceae (Liguliflorae) in the pre-European period suggests that an important root vegetable Microseris lanceolata (Walp.) Sch.Bip. may have been abundant. Charcoal deposition was low in the pre-European period and significantly increased immediately after European arrival. Collectively, these changes suggest substantial ecological impacts following European settlement including cessation of Aboriginal traditions of fire management, a shift in hydrological conditions from open water lagoons to more ephemeral herb covered lagoons, and increased diversity of alien herbaceous species following pasture establishment.