"This book describes how the English vied with the Powhatan Indians to dominate the lands and resources in Tidewater Virginia. The author depicts the native inhabitants and the newcomers as equal actors in a drama whose outcome was not a foregone conclusion."--Amazon.com.

This volume comprises a new collection of essays--four previously unpublished--by James Axtell, author of the acclaimed The European and the Indian and The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America, and the foremost contemporary authority on Indian-European relations in Colonial North America. Arguing that moral judgements have a legitimate place in the writing of history, Axtell scrutinizes the actions of various European invaders--missionaries, traders, soldiers, and ordinary settlers--in the sixteenth century. Focusing on the interactions of Spanish, French, and English colonists with American Indians over the eastern half of the United States, he examines what the history of colonial America might have looked like had the New World truly been a "virgin land," devoid of Indians.

This important new collection brings together ten of Alden Vaughan's essays about race relations in the British colonies. Focusing on the variable role of cultural and racial perceptions on colonial policies for Indians and African Americans, the essays include explorations of the origins of slavery and racism in Virginia, the causes of the Puritans' war against the Pequots, and the contest between natives and colonists to win the other's allegiance by persuasion or captivity. Less controversial but equally important to understanding the racial dynamics of early America are essays on early English paradigmatic views of Native Americans, the changing Anglo-American perceptions of Indian color and character, and frontier violence in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania. Published here for the first time are an extensive expos'e of slaveholder ideology in seventeenth-century Barbados, the second half of an essay on Puritan judicial policies for Indians, a general introduction, and headnotes to each essay. All previously published pieces have been revised to reflect recent scholarship or to address recent debates. Challenging standard interpretations while probing previously-ignored aspects of early American race relations, this convenient and provocative collection by one our most incisive commentators will be required reading for all scholars and students of early American history.

The lost colony of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, was England's first experiment in civilian empire building and the first attempt at peaceful co-existence between Native Americans and the English. It disappeared without trace, defeating intense efforts to find it. One hundred and twelve men, women, and children were abandoned there. The only man to risk his life in the battle to get relief supplies to the colony was John White, Roanoke's unlikely choice for governor and, in the end, its sole survivor. This new account of the tragedy gives a convincing explanation of how the project was doomed from the start. Phil Jones sets the tragedy in its global context and lays bare the myth of Elizabethan sea power, examining the true motives of its supposedly selfless heroes, who conveniently managed to reconcile patriotism with profiteering. With officially sanctioned piracy and plunder the only incentive for sailors in a private-enterprise war against Spain, it is hardly surprising that making money became the overriding priority to which everything else was sacrificed. The subsequent search for them among the local Indian tribes brought to light a grisly tale of ethnic cleansing. It heralded a race war of genocidal proportions, as Europeans and Native Americans fought for the control of a continent, a battle in which imported alien disease, rather than the superiority of European technology and culture, was triumphant.

Both concise and wide-ranging, this encyclopedia covers massacres, atrocities, war crimes, and genocides, including acts of inhumanity on all continents; and serves as a reminder that lest we forget, history will repeat itself. The 400-plus entries in Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: An Encyclopedia provide accessible and concise information on the difficult subject of abject human violence committed on all continents. The entries in this two-volume work describe atrocities, massacres, and war crimes committed in the 20th century, thereby documenting how human beings have repeatedly proven their capability to commit horrific acts of inhumanity even in relatively recent times and within the modern era. The encyclopedia covers countries, treaties, and terms; profiles individuals who had been formally indicted for war crimes as well as those who have committed mass atrocities and gone unpunished; and addresses human rights violations, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace.

Ancestral Threads: Weaving Remembrance in Poetry & Essays & Family Folklore is a master piece of research, charting more than 20 years of delving into the secrets of mixed bloodlines. Poetry, dreams, essays, shamanic journeys, & family folklore embroider the pages amidst old photographs & early maps that help to weave more than 30 generations together reaaching back through time. The mysteries of mixed bloodlines & mingled ancestries blossom here with unusual color & grow evermore interesting when you see how everything weaves together. Ancestral Threads is an inspiring, multi-generational, multi-family saga honoring the ancestors & celebrating their enduring spirits with special affection. The Language of Flowers & Elizabethan Ethnobotany of Shakespeare embellish the early part of the book. Special essays, haiku, & haibun help sketch together some amazing experiences. This inspiring work delves deeply into the origins of names and sources of family origins in most stimulating ways!

Tragic historic story of the destruction of Native American peoples as a result of the Civil War, including their own service in both the Union and Confederate armies.

Within a generation of Columbus's first landfall in the Caribbean, Spain ruled an empire in Central and South America many times its size, while, in stark contrast, the English had only succeeded in settling the banks of one waterway and several bays. Invading America examines English development by reviewing the voyages, the conflict with the native peoples, the lack of leadership and the unrealistic ambitions. Using documentary evidence and vivid first-hand accounts, it offers a new perspective on the often tragic, sometimes heroic, English attempts at settlement.

Long before lucrative tribal casinos sparked controversy, Native Americans amassed other wealth that provoked intense debate about the desirability, morality, and compatibility of Indian and non-Indian economic practices. Alexandra Harmon examines seven such instances of Indian affluence and the dilemmas they presented both for Native Americans and for Euro-Americans--dilemmas rooted in the colonial origins of the modern American economy. Harmon's study not only compels us to look beyond stereotypes of greedy whites and poor Indians, but also convincingly demonstrates that Indians deserve a prominent place in American economic history and in the history of American ideas.

How environmental forces, and human responses to them, profoundly shaped both Native American and colonial life along the Potomac River. James D. Rice’s fresh study of the Potomac River basin begins with a mystery. Why, when the whole of the region offered fertile soil and excellent fishing and hunting, was nearly three-quarters of the land uninhabited on the eve of colonization? Rice wonders how the existence of this no man’s land influenced nearby Native American and, later, colonial settlements. Did it function as a commons, as a place where all were free to hunt and fish? Or was it perceived as a strange and hostile wilderness? Rice discovers environmental factors at the center of the story. Making use of extensive archaeological and anthropological research, as well as the vast scholarship on farming practices in the colonial period, he traces the region’s history from its earliest known habitation. With exceptionally vivid prose, Rice makes clear the implications of unbridled economic development for the forests, streams, and wetlands of the Potomac River basin. With what effects, Rice asks, did humankind exploit and then alter the landscape and the quality of the river’s waters? Equal parts environmental, Native American, and colonial history, Nature and History in the Potomac Country is a useful and innovative study of the Potomac River, its valley, and its people.