Excellent and informative with top rated historical information. ( )

Read for a class in college. The writing isn't great, but the subject matter is fascinating. ( )

Salisbury, Neal. Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of
New England, 1500-1643. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

While Neal Salisbury does not tread the exact path of Francis Jennings in describing the early encounters between Native Americans and European explorers, Manitou and Providence, his one hundred-fifty year portrait of New England is only a few steps removed from the earlier The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (1975). Hoping to qualify Jennings’s work, Salisbury argues that as Europeans came to what became New England in two distinct phases, that of the traders and explorers and that of the settlers, they—especially the economically-driven English whose society was marked by upheaval and conflict—disrupted the continuous, abundant, balanced life of Native Americans already living in the region. While Salisbury intends for his “ethno-historical approach to Indian history within a larger history of the Indian-European relations in early colonial New Englandâ€? to provide a balanced telling of the cultural interactions between these two peoples during this time, he ultimately depicts the English settlers, specifically the misguided Puritans, in a very unfavorable light (6). In short, as Salisbury walks the tightrope of ethno-historical analysis, he loses his balance only to break his fall on the hapless advocate of the “New England Way.â€?
Using the interdisciplinary methods of the ethno-historian, drawing on cultural anthropology as well as the traditional canons of historical scholarship, Salisbury begins his examination of Indian-European relations by trying to determine the effects of the arrival of European traders and explorers into the Native American context. First, he describes, as well as the extant material will allow, the life of Native Americans in North America before their contact with Europeans. His emphasizes that Native American society was one of balance, stability, and continuity. Salisbury demonstrates how this sense of order permeated all of society—from agricultural economies to religious convictions to gender roles to band (or tribal) leadership to ceremonial games. “To fail to reciprocate appropriately in such a system was to upset the balance of the universe and was, therefore, virtually unthinkableâ€? (49). Once he has established the tenor of Native American life pre-contact, he then begins to treat the European invasion—the first phase of which is the arrival of traders. These early European traders, especially the French and the Dutch, disrupted the ordered society of the Indians, undermining the principles of reciprocity and equality (50). As the traders made their way into Native American society and develop relationships based on the exchange of goods, “it is clear,â€? Salisbury argues, “that an indigenous pattern of reciprocal exchange by self-sufficient peoples was being transformed into one in which groups engaged in specialized production were dependent on outside sources for at least part of their food supplies (in the case of the Abenaki), tools, and clothingâ€? (77). Things are not as bad as they could be, however. If the French and Dutch traders caused disorder in Indian societies, the arrival of the English settlers, to hear Salisbury tell it, ushered in the apocalypse.
The appearance of the English settler, the second phase of European contact in New England, occupies the majority of Salisbury’s attention. He wastes no time in getting to what he sees as the motivations of these settlers: “Understanding that this goal [making Indian land available for English farming] virtually guaranteed eventual conflict between the two peoples, the various colonizers generally sought to establish their political, military, and cultural superiorityâ€? (85). In effect, the invasion had started. The first stage of this invasion resulted in the introduction of European pathogens to the New England environment. These plague-like diseases decimated perhaps as much as 90% of the Native American population, allowing the English to quell Indian resistance in the easiest way imaginable, namely, removal—albeit unintended (104).
After these early virgin soil epidemics, the English settlers proceeded to dominate the remaining Native Americans by using treaties, forcing them into political subordination and social segregation (118). Neglecting the spiritual status of the Native Americans, these Puritan settlers focused on the rising trade available to them in the empire’s market economy. The economic changes within this system allowed the settlers in New England to move closer to self-sufficiency (143). This move to self-sufficiency was pushed along by what Salisbury calls the “wampum revolutionâ€? (147-152). As the English Puritans discovered the value of wampum, it provided them with yet another way to extend their control over the various Indian peoples of New England. This hegemony became even more entrenched with the formation of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which promised to bring even more settlers to the region.
These colonists, participants in the “Great Migrationâ€? of the 1630s, perhaps receive the most direct attack by Salisbury. First, these Puritans only made their way to New England to become independently secure. They only “embrace Puritanism as a means of orienting themselves and mastering the forces of the new orderâ€? (166). Later, Salisbury contends: “While the industrious sort was represented among the advocates of each of these approaches, most were probably less concerned, at least initially, with the political and ecclesiastical doctrine than with the validation Puritanism, as both ideology and movement, gave their personal quests for independence and securityâ€? (171-172). Not only can the Puritan penchant for domination and economic power be seen in their quest for land in New England, but Salisbury also locates it in the displacement of the Pequot and the containment of the Narragansett (203). In order to fashion their City on a Hill, the Puritan colonists, in Salisbury’s estimation, had to remove any peoples who did not belong in that city. Thus, they destroyed the Pequot, who “were anything but the ruthless conquerors of the Puritan-inspired legendâ€? (211). Their strengthening of English domination over the Native Americans moved closer to completion with the execution of Uncas and the removal of the Naragansett threat.
The major problem with Salisbury’s enlightening account of Indian-English relations is his unapologetic denunciation of the English Puritans. He so despises these settlers that he is uncertain what to do with those Puritans who seemingly fail to fall into his tight, little preconceptions, specifically John Robinson and Roger Williams. All Salisbury can say, as he does about Robinson, is that when he spoke out against the prevailing English actions and attitudes, he “had glimpsed further than most Europeans of his time into the psychology of Indian-hating, though its magnitude and origins were beyond his understandingâ€? (134). For Salisbury, spiritual concerns—if they even existed—were always overwhelmed by material ones. It is at this point that Charles Cohen’s “Conversion Among Puritans and Amerindians: A Theological and Cultural Perspectiveâ€? lends much-needed balance to Salisbury’s ill-proportioned account of Indian-English relations. While both scholars recognize the cultural differences often separating the two groups, only Cohen seems to allow the representatives from the groups to speak for themselves. Perhaps historians often hesitate to follow such an approach because it seems too easy. It is almost like falling off a log—hence, the need for the elusive quality of balance.