Peoples of a Spacious Land: Families and Cultures in Colonial New England

by Gloria L. Main

In this book about families--those of the various native peoples of southern New England and those of the English settlers and their descendants--Gloria Main compares the ways in which the two cultures went about solving common human problems. Using original sources--diaries, inventories, wills, court records--as well as the findings of demographers, ethnologists, and cultural anthropologists, she compares the family life of the English colonists with the lives of comparable groups remaining in England and of native Americans. She looks at social organization, patterns of work, gender relations, sexual practices, childbearing and childrearing, demographic changes, and ways of dealing with sickness and death.

Main finds that the transplanted English family system produced descendants who were unusually healthy for the times and spectacularly fecund. Large families and steady population growth led to the creation of new towns and the enlargement of old ones with inevitably adverse consequences for the native Americans in the area. Main follows the two cultures into the eighteenth century and makes clear how the promise of perpetual accessions of new land eventually extended Puritan family culture across much of the North American continent.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction

330 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2001

Reviews

[Sean McGowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars... In some ways this book is underwhelming because it has been so heavily cited that it is hard to recall the fete that it was when it was first published. That said it remains an excellent, comprehensive overview of life for English settlers and the New England life they constructed. Main took an admirable stab at also incorporating the indigenous inhabitants into the work, but it doesn't always work. In many chapters it feels a bit like the old critique made of early attempts to include women into texts: "add Indians and stir". What completely boggles my mind is her weaving in various other indigenous peoples into the story when she comes up short on local Narragansett examples. Not only does she employ non-New England examples, she pulls from non-North America...because apparently the Maya and the Ache of Paraguay (among others) are applicable and appropriate contrasts because... they too are native?!?!! Fortunately (and in some respects equally problematically) there aren't too many intrusions of this nature, but there are certainly enough to leave me scratching my head wondering "what was she thinking?" I double checked after the ridiculous inclusion of the Ache child rearing practices (pgs. 120-124) to make certain that Main isn't an Anthropologist masquerading as a Historian (which would have made sense) - she isn't so I have no idea what particular flight of whimsy led her down this path. Ignoring the odd and strange, this remains a solid cultural text for understanding New England settlement.