Before the Revolution: America's Ancient Pasts

by Daniel K. Richter

America began, we are often told, with the Founding Fathers, the men who waged a revolution and created a unique place called the United States. We may acknowledge the early Jamestown and Puritan colonists and mourn the dispossession of Native Americans, but we rarely grapple with the complexity of the nation's pre-revolutionary past. In this pathbreaking revision, Daniel Richter shows that the United States has a much deeper history than is apparent--that far from beginning with a clean slate, it is a nation with multiple pasts that stretch back as far as the Middle Ages, pasts whose legacies continue to shape the present. Exploring a vast range of original sources, Before the Revolution spans more than seven centuries and ranges across North America, Europe, and Africa. Richter recovers the lives of a stunning array of peoples--Indians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Africans, English--as they struggled with one another and with their own people for control of land and resources. Their struggles occurred in a global context and built upon the remains of what came before. Gradually and unpredictably, distinctive patterns of North American culture took shape on a continent where no one yet imagined there would be nations called the United States, Canada, or Mexico. By seeing these trajectories on their own dynamic terms, rather than merely as a prelude to independence, Richter's epic vision reveals the deepest origins of American history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Historical, Native American, European History, Education

560 pages, Hardcover

First published August 25, 2011

Reviews

[ThereWillBeBooks]

One of my favorite fun facts to bore people at dinner with is that more time elapsed between 1492-1776 than from 1776 to the present. That’s a huge chunk of history that tends to be breezily neglected. But, if you’re into that sort of thing, the history of that overlooked era is fascinating and an inquiry into its events can radically alter your perspective American History and our current moment in its wake.

Richter does an amazing job of presenting this underappreciated era, its layers, players, and events without teleologically casting an eye forward towards 1776. One of the best books on the subject that I’ve read.

[Jamie]

Perhaps a little over-ambitious, this book covers everything from pre-1492 up until the Stamp Act of 1765. An excellent amount of detail for a history of several centuries, it suffers from attempting to cover everything and as a result doesn't master any particular subject. Tries to be very comprehensive but at the same time assumes that readers know more than most casual readers probably would.

[David Bates]

Published ten years after his speculative thoughts in Facing East from Indian Country, Daniel Richter’s Before the Revolution is an attempted synthesis of the new scholarship on Native-American history and the colonization of North America by Europeans that attempts to draw together North American, European and African history. One of Richter’s more interesting choices in the work is to use the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age as devices, showing how Medieval Europe and the concurrent agricultural revolution in North America gave rise to more complicated and stratified societies on both continents. Conceptualizing history as layers of sediment, each of which is shaped by the layer below and helps to shape the layer above, Richter draws out continuities in the colonization of Ireland and the Conquest of Granada to the first contacts with Indians that followed shortly after. Like most grand syntheses, Before the Revolution has its conceptually awkward elements, the most glaring of which is the teleological and occasionally celebratory progression toward the (inevitable?) American Revolution. Despite considerable attention to early contact and southeastern culture in Before the Revolution it is telling that Richter chooses to end his narrative with the destruction of the temporarily stable imperial period in the Seven Years War, when co-existence seemed a little less impossible and Atlantic World markets in some sense integrated many peoples. It was out of the wreckage of this world that Richter located the harder lines of racial conflict between Indian and European.

[Ellis Hastings]

A comprehensive book about the global layers of North America from the middle ages to the revolution. It covers the politics, alliances, and economies of Native America, Colonists, and Europeans. The only critique is that the definition of common words at the header of each title page of each part felt kind of condescending. "EPILOGUE: then the definition" felt kind of belittling, as if the readers don't know what these words mean. Other than that mildly off-putting thing, this book was a masterpiece.

[Gabriel]

This is a well presented book about the history of the America, or north America, what is not USA and Canada about what was before the USA took shape and it was created as a country.

There are some references to the world colonization quest, lead by English, French, Spanish and Dutch explorers, oddly encouraged by the Catholic church and the Pope at that time, with the intent to literally conquer and enslave native people in the name of the Catholic church, or the King ruling Europe at one point or another in time.

It is clear the author did extensive research in this subject matter and it is a very educative book, describing in detail, what happened before what is today US and Canada took shape.

I am not sure why some say, or claim that the term "hegemony" comes from the Chinese dynasties and the concept in itself is hard to understand by the so called "western world" - maybe because the Chinese started this trend more than 5000 years ago...

But, nonetheless, the same concept of hegemony is clearly depicted here, with clear actions supported by the Catholic church and the Pope and then my the English people rising against the Catholic church, as what started as protestants and ended in so many types of religion variations and types...

Either way, my point is that the "western world" is by no means a stranger to the concept of "hegemony" as in itself by colonizing lands that never belong to them initially and oppressing and enslaving millions of native people are by fact a clear proof of fully understanding and acting based on the concept of hegemony...

Interesting book that should make the list of anyone who is in fact prepared for the historic truth as it happened...

[Mary]

I wanted to like this book, but I just could not make it through the first two chapters. Maybe I will try it again another time.

[Speesh]

Perhaps more of a reference book than an actual readable in one go - though I did - book. There are a lot of facts, evidence, ideas and stories in here, so much so that you can become a little shell-shocked by it all. Then, as the basic idea was - perhaps - to hit the current members of the USA, in the face with facts (a waste of time however) that they were not the first wanderers into a virgin land, does get a little lost in the downpour of evidence that they weren't. And that includes the invasion and genocide in South America as well.

Having said all that, it is a supremely interesting and thought provocative book. I am interested in the early history of the New World, Vikings, first English settlers and so on, so it was right up my thematic alley, with - not surprisingly - a myriad of things I either didn't know, or didn't realise. You're not going to find a smoking gun with regards to what caused the Revolution of 1776, or add to the a-weepin' and a-wailin' over the treatment of the Native Americans. Though the pointers are there, in the attitudes and baggage brought from their pasts - from both sides - and no one emerges without taint.

Really superbly interesting and constantly engaging, and if this is a field of interest for you, unmissable.

World's Best Book Blog : Speesh Reads
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[Melissa]

Daniel Richter, professor of American history at the University of Pennsylvania, makes a unique and important contribution to early American history by delving into America’s “Ancient Pasts” to reveal layers of history that shaped the nation’s tumultuous years before the American Revolution. Drawing on original sources that include telling quotations, Richter challenges the Anglo centric idea that American history begins with English arrival to the continent. Indeed, as he argues, colonial America is not about the English, nor about only two peoples – the Native Americans and the English, as it is often presented, but is much more complicated. Nor is American history a tale of Europeans dominating the Natives, but instead, it is a series of complex relationships that evolved over time. Richter’s title points to the plural “ancient pasts” of America, pasts that reach more deeply in time than most historians contemplate, around the tenth or eleventh century.
“Pasts,” for Richter are much like geological layers of patterns that settle in on top of each other, each influencing the additional layer. According to Richter, there are six layers of history. The first, progenitors, is made up of “cultural tectonic plates” on each side of the Atlantic. This is the time not only of Medieval Europeans, but also of Medieval North Americans, the Mississippians and the Pueblo. It is a period upon which few Americanists explore, but is an important foundation, the bedrock, that shaped and influenced future layers. Medieval America, Richter argues, was parallel to Medieval Europe, navigating the same issues of building agriculture, religions, and communities. The primary difference is that in Europe, building took on an imperial nature, while in America it was one of kinship, though not without tribal warfare. Each side was establishing trade systems and developing a sense of patriotism through the fifteenth century, the substances upon which the descendants of each side would meet later, carrying the burdens of their ancestors.
The second layer, the conquistadores, is settled over the early modern states of Europe and is reflective of motivations originating from faith and empire – to “subdue the world for Christ and Crown.” The former gave rise to to brutal conversions and massacres, while the latter justified the slavery of the Natives and conquest of lands. It was infused with, Richter writes, “fantasies of ruling a grateful Native population” in land that could only be English. The fantasy would soon be crushed in a rush for land.
Richter’s third layer, in the late sixteenth century, was a foundation of trader networks, not only in goods, but the exchange of ideas. Trade had long existed among the Native tribes, but now the Europeans had found their way into the networks, which increased tensions between the Native tribes competing for goods. Along with the trade of goods, however, came the trade in widespread epidemics that wiped out thousands of susceptible Native Americans. The era of trading also took its toll on the Europeans who neglected farming to the detriment of their survival.
Overlapping the layer of traders, a new layer of planters emerged that fractured relationship with natives, but also divided the English from other settlers who maintained trading relationships with the Natives. Dominated by the English Puritans, the planters created communities of families, thus increasing their population. The agricultural expansion of the planters amplified the need for slave labor, providing a niche for Dutch slave traders. The increase in free labor fed the desire for expansion at a tremendous cost to Native Americans. Richter defines this era of land hunger as a greater threat to the continent than the conquistadores.
In the mid seventeenth century, following the Age of Restoration, European states began to send militia over to conquer the continent. Richter describes this layer as imperialist, a layer of bureaucracy, military, capitalism, war and rebellion. The French and English dominated, not only the native people, but also other Europeans, particularly the Dutch and Spanish. The layer of traders was crumbling over demand for royal revenue. Control of the slave trade shifted to English hands. The combination and disruption of previous layers coupled with conflict with the natives ultimately resulted in civil contention and violence, including Bacon’s Rebellion.
The final layer in Richter’s model is the Atlanteans. The “mixed up” Atlantic world had become bound together by links to Atlantic trade routes and empires. The routes opened up a New World to America that did not rest solely on economics, but included ideas, culture, and intellectual exchange. The slave trade grew to mass proportions and with it the prosperity of their labor. Immigrants from all over Europe arrived in America for land, hope, and religious freedom. America was not made of Americans, but Atlanteans – Americans, Africans, and Europeans. As Native Americans were also involved in Atlantic trade, more competition arose. This layer, Richter asserts, established the connections that created the climate for the Seven Years War while simultaneously laying the foundation for the Revolution.
As the study of colonial history continues to expand into later history in order to give it more validity, now well into the Civil War, Richter’s work demonstrates the importance of the study of earliest America and the impact it on the events that fill history textbooks. Examining America before European arrival on the continent dispels the notion that little happened in America before Columbus or, rather, that nothing of importance took place. It was not a “blank landscape” made fruitful by the Europeans, but layers of events and experiences that must be excavated in order to better understand not only the history of America but also the “present pasts.”
Melissa Hughes
Florida State University

[Aaron]

Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Pasts is a fantastic colonial history. One of the most striking things about it is where it begins: not in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, but in the medieval period, in the late 1200s and 1300s. Richter starts there in order to compare medieval England and medieval North America and to show how these societies were already diverging long before the Revolution itself. The point is that the forces leading up to the American Revolution had very deep roots.

I would compare this book somewhat to Albion’s Seed. Where Albion’s Seed focuses on the first four migratory waves into America, Before the Revolution covers both what was happening in England during those migrations and what was motivating the people who made them. It gives you a broader framework for understanding the colonial world.

This is also the book that brings back one of my high school teacher’s old lines, which has been stuck in my head ever since: that the American Revolution was a sequel to the English Civil War. I am still not completely sure that is true in a clean, literal sense, but after reading Richter, it definitely seems true that the English Civil War left massive scars on the American psyche that extended all the way into the revolutionary period.

The way Richter tells it, there are roughly four phases to this history. First come the colonial beginnings, the era Albion’s Seed partly describes, where people are trying to build little villages, farms, and plantations across the ocean. It is messy, neglected, and often miserable, with plenty of fantasy about finding gold that does not exist. Then comes the English Civil War, which drives major waves of migration, including religious refugees, economic refugees, and eventually people displaced by the broader fact that England is crowded and trying to push population outward. After that, once the Civil War settles, the Atlantic economic system really starts to take shape. This is when a kind of broader Atlantic British identity emerges.

That matters because when you watch something like John Adams, or think about the debates of 1774 and 1775, these people did not yet think of themselves as straightforwardly American. Fundamentally, they were British. They lived inside the British system. They bought British goods, traded with British merchants, and moved through British institutions. In some ways, it would have felt less like a foreign relationship and more like a person in California trading with someone in New York.

One thing this book pushes against is the revisionist story that the American Revolution was simply a matter of rich white settlers wanting lower taxes and independence from Britain so they could do whatever they wanted. That version often feels like it takes current political categories and retrofits them onto the eighteenth century, as though the Founders were basically modern Republicans and the British were some kind of socialist Labour government trying to fund the NHS. That is obviously an exaggeration, but not by as much as some modern interpretations would like.

The Revolution does not need to be glamorized. It is very clear that many colonial settlers, rich and poor alike, wanted access to Indigenous land, and that the British were trying to restrain westward expansion because they did not want to pay for the conflicts it would trigger. It is also clear that, in trying to hold the empire together after the Seven Years’ War, and in trying to govern newly acquired French populations, Britain had to create systems of governance that did not fit what the colonial settlers were used to.

One way to imagine this is to picture the federal government suddenly incorporating territories that are directly controlled by the president rather than treated like ordinary states. You can imagine how unsettling that would feel to people living in the existing system. Richter makes clear that the Revolution was not just rich white people fighting other rich white people over money. It was a society in the middle of a profound political, economic, and imperial divorce.

Other books, like The American Revolutions, make it clear that this break may not even have made immediate sense from a narrow short-term economic perspective. And that itself suggests that there was more going on than simple material self-interest.

[Kevin Moynihan]

Enjoyable book. You have to weed out some of the Leftist pablum that seems to be required of any book being published over the last ten years. But once you do that, you are still left with some interesting observations.

[Tyler Gaffney]

This was so good! I had to read it for a class so I kind of read it too fast to absorb it all, but it was super interesting and well written. I definitely want to reread this at some point in the future when I don’t have a deadline attached to it.

[Ryan Hathaway]

Grand in scope, well researched but it loses its narrative quite a bit.

[Ron Kiehn]

Interesting but I got lost in the sauce.

[kate gottsman]

3.75, rounded up!

[Joseph Stieb]

"Before the Revolution" covers American history from before the discovery through the Seven Years War. Richter suggests that the exchange between New and Old worlds occurred in layers with each older group shaping the actions and cultures of the later groups. The layers of settlement organize his book into sections about progenitors, conquistadores, traders, planters, imperialists, and Atlanteans. These concepts often overlap national and geographical boundaries, making them a unique way of thinking about this time period. At times, the layering was literal, as Europeans settled areas like Plymouth that were former native villages decimated by disease. The most interesting sections of the book were about the progenitors, conquistadores, and Atlanteans. The progenitors section shows numerous fascinating similarities between medieval native and European societies. For instance, both sides glorified war and elevated a class of warriors to political power and social prestige. Ricther changes the way we see both progenitor societies by using the language most historians would use to describe natives to describe Europeans. Here's his description of medieval Christian theology: "In that village church, meanwhile-as in the great Christian cathedrals that, throughout Europe, served the function of temple mounds-a creed originally preached by a wandering prophet of forgiveness who had been executed in the most ignoble way mutated into a religion focused on an authoritarian judge-king who, on the Last Day, would wield his sword, cast his enemies into the fires of Hell, and grant arbitrary pardon to the few who acknowledge his lordship over all."

The conquistadores section is interesting because it shows how English and Spanish colonists saw themselves as continuing religious crusades, whether it was the continuation of the reconquista or the quest to create a purer form of Christianity. In many ways, the conquistadores were repeating patterns of European conquest of places like Ireland, Muslim Spain, or islands like Cape Verde. Either way, meeting the natives on their own terms was not in the cards. Richter successfully shows the many continuities between the colonists and Europeans but also how years of living in a vastly different world created significant differences. Of course, most of them still considered themselves members of European nations even as their lifestyles drifted apart. Rather than escape (as the standard view puts it), they sought to continue and gain victory in European conflicts, whether they were religious or political. Ricther generally does an excellent job of explaining and joining European and American history. The Atlanteans section was interesting because it gives you the sense of the Atlantic ocean as a vibrant place where goods, ideas, fashions, and people were exchanged, creating a sense of identity for many that was beyond their local lives.

This book compares unfavorably to Alan Taylor's "American Colonies" for those who want an overview of the pre-US period of American history. The idea of using layers to orient early American history is more innovative than Taylor's straightforward design, but Ricther is inconsistent in his execution of this idea. For example, the sections about planters and imperialists mainly focus on the pre-US English colonies at the expense of French or Spanish colonies and economies. The narrative often drifts in strange directions, whereas Taylor clearly orients his readers by geography and nationality. Some of the chapters are united only by the vaguest themes, such as "Contending for a Continent" or "People in Motion: Enslaved or Free." Taylor's writing style is also far more straightforward than Richter. Finally, Richter's focus on showing the parallels between European and native societies doesn't help us understand why one conquered the other. A discussion of why Europeans formed formal, unifying institutions such as the state, standing armies, companies, and universities would help the reader understand why their encounters were so lopsided in terms of power.

Still, Richter is mostly successful in his main goal of shooting down the idea expressed in Thomas Paine's famous quote "We have it in our power to begin the world over again." Richter stresses that American history was not an exceptional fresh start as our mythology puts it, but a construction on top of previous layers of conquest, exploitation, cultural change, and economic exchange. I think he is right in all areas except one: Native Americans. Neither Ricther nor anyone else I've read so far has shown how Native Americans or native culture/ideas profoundly influenced the founding period of our nation. These ideas and individuals were far more rooted in unique American institutions as well as the European Enlightenment. Richter may be right that we didn't start with a blank slate, but few countries have a founding that is as distinct, purposeful, idealistic, and inspiring as America's.

[Paul Sand]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

A big scholarly tome that recounts the history of America—as you might guess—prior to the Revolution. The author, Daniel K. Richter, is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I prevailed upon the library at the University Near Here to buy it after reading this glowing mention from Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, and they graciously complied. But whenever I do that, I feel obliged to check the book out and read it. So…

It's written more for an academic audience, while I was looking for something more aimed at the "semi-curious semi-educated goofball" market. It was kind of a slog. Richter's writing is adequate, but it rarely sparkles. (Occasionally, he'll let slip an opinion or two into the text via strong wording; that's about it.)

So I read this sort of thing for interesting stories, oddball facts, and a better sense of my country's historical roots. But I'm glad I don't have to pass a test on it. A few things I picked up, big and small, that I was insufficiently aware of before:

The Little Ice Age (starting around 1300) had profound effects on both Native Americans and Europeans; the collapse of agricultural systems arguably set things up for the European "discovery" and eventual takeover of America.

For example, the Native city of Cahokia, just east of today's St. Louis, lasted for hundreds of years; at its peak it probably had more inhabitants than London at the same time. But it began to decline around 1300 and was abandoned a few centuries later. And today, it's just mounds.

This one is embarrassing: there was a French-inspired 1690 Indian raid on my home town (then called Salmon Falls); this raid (and others like it) inspired a little prequel to the French and Indian War a few decades later.

Quibble: early on in the book, discussing Native agriculture, Richter is discussing the dietary properties of the crops. He refers to zein as an amino acid; it's not, it's a protein. He discusses lysine and tryptophan "whose absence is a major causes [sic] of pellagra." Although blunders are inevitable in a big work, letting two slip by within the same paragraph doesn't inspire confidence.

But, on the whole, recommended to you history buffs. (Here is a review from Charles C. Mann in the WSJ.)

[Jay Perkins]

This book is a summary of the North American and Atlantic history "before the Revolution", as the title states. What is the most helpful about Richter's history are the important connections he makes between better know events (Puritans-Reformation; culture of Native Americans, etc). the layout is excellent and easy to follow. He does a great job explaining what events shaped the thinking and actions of those who colonized North America, as well as the native inhabitants. My only complaint is that Richter's overall tone is negative, which makes the reading at times a bit of a slog. That said however, I'm glad I read this book and will probably re-read some of his chapters.

[John Klinkose]

Good read, a nice overview of colonial history. Breaks the history into stages of development from Conquistador through Traders, Planters and finally Imperialists. All of these groups and their interrelation with the indigenous people, layering on top of each other, evolving into what becomes American. There is also a lot of interesting trivia I didn't know like where the name "Atlantic" comes from and how Mount Vernon got it's name. Do you know?

[Steven]

The detail on offer is remarkable. But I felt the author was trying too hard to force a thesis in several parts of the book. The book is best by far, or at least most interested me, when the author (1) sketched out extended economic relationships between disparate native and European colonial groups and (2) explored the role of European manufactured goods and control over access to the as a source or prestige, status, and political power in native societies,

[Rick]

Covers a huge amount of material for its size. An excellent overview of North America between 1492 and 1775. This book does a great job of putting the colonization of North America in the context of European events as well as in the lives of the indigenous population before and during contact.
Naturally a book of this scope cannot possibly go into great detail on any single topic but, by its nature, invites the curious to delve further into the details.

[Işıl]

Tackling the issues concerning the bonds between the people living on different sides of the Atlantic, Before the Revolution doesn't give any information about Africa, which had an equally important role in shaping today's Atlantic relations. Other than that, I kind of enjoyed it despite being a fan of "after" the revolution.

[Mac]

New argument into America's Founding. I enjoyed the research into America's ancient past and its connection to fuedal Europe and feudal America. Ricter is a hell of a writer and his research is impeccable .

[Wf Munn]

A very good treatment of the topic. It may have fast forwarded toward the end.

[Tom]

I will use some othis information in my next history class that I teach

[Tara]

Excellent look at the convergence of early Americans and Europeans and the effects of the clash of those two medieval cultures.

[Jason S]

An interesting book that connects European diplomatic history to developments in the "New World"...too long and dense in spots, but many great points.

[V]

Reads as if he is listing the events and is very choppy. Opposite of what you want in a history novel.

[Christine]

🌟3.5

[Terry Tschann Skelton]

Not as much new material as I'd hoped for. But he had some interesting perspectives.