Over the last two decades a major revaluation has been taking place of the colonial Puritan imagination. With the growth of interest in early American literature has come increasing recognition of its quality and a better understanding of its place in the continuity of American culture. However, much of the best critical work to date has been published as articles in scholarly journals, and in bringing together for the first time the best work in this growing field the present anthology fills a number of important needs. It is at once a valuabale and accessible introduction for students, a summing-up of a new enterprise, and a guide for further studies.

Includes section "Bibliography. Articles on the history of New England in periodical literature.

"This is an amazing study, a memoir which provides insight intofamily abuse in 18th century America.... a significant volume which enhances ourknowledge of social and religious life in New England. It is also a movingcontribution to the literature of spirituality." -- Review andExpositor "Students of American culture are indebted to AnnTaves for editing this fascinating and revealing document and for providing it withfull annotation and an illuminating introduction." -- American StudiesInternational "This is above all an eminently teachable text, which raises important issues in the history of religion, women, and the family andabout the place of violence in American life." -- New EnglandQuarterly ..". stimulating, enlightening, and provocative..." -- Journal of Ecumenical Studies Abigail Abbot Bailey wasa devout 18th-century Congregationalist woman whose husband abused her, committedadultery with their female servants, and practiced incest with one of theirdaughters. This new, fully annotated edition of her memoirs, featuring a detailedintroduction, offers a thoughtful analysis of the role of religion amidst the trialsof the author's everyday life.

The essays, which were originally published in The New England Quarterly: A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters, consider a wide range of areas in Native American-white relations: from Abenaki territory in northern Maine to Pequot lands in southern Connecticut; from profitable commerce to devastating warfare; from religious persuasion to labor exploitation; from cultural mixing to non-violent resistance; from literary representation to political argumentation. A comprehensive and insightful introduction by the editor places the richly diverse topics and perspectives within the broader context of New England ethnohistory. Most of the authors have added postscripts to their original essays commenting on recent scholarship and interpretations.

In Brethren by Nature, Margaret Ellen Newell reveals a little-known aspect of American history: English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of Indians. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists' desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, including the Pequot War of 1637, King Philip's War of 1675–76, and the northeastern Wabanaki conflicts of 1676–1749. When the wartime conquest of Indians ceased, New Englanders turned to the courts to get control of their labor, or imported Indians from Florida and the Carolinas, or simply claimed free Indians as slaves.Drawing on letters, diaries, newspapers, and court records, Newell recovers the slaves' own stories and shows how they influenced New England society in crucial ways. Indians lived in English homes, raised English children, and manned colonial armies, farms, and fleets, exposing their captors to Native religion, foods, and technology. Some achieved freedom and power in this new colonial culture, but others experienced violence, surveillance, and family separations. Newell also explains how slavery linked the fate of Africans and Indians. The trade in Indian captives connected New England to Caribbean and Atlantic slave economies. Indians labored on sugar plantations in Jamaica, tended fields in the Azores, and rowed English naval galleys in Tangier. Indian slaves outnumbered Africans within New England before 1700, but the balance soon shifted. Fearful of the growing African population, local governments stripped Indian and African servants and slaves of legal rights and personal freedoms. Nevertheless, because Indians remained a significant part of the slave population, the New England colonies did not adopt all of the rigid racial laws typical of slave societies in Virginia and Barbados. Newell finds that second- and third-generation Indian slaves fought their enslavement and claimed citizenship in cases that had implications for all enslaved peoples in eighteenth-century America.

Essays on the interplay of American life and literature.

Includes section "Bibliography. Articles on the history of New England in periodical literature.