Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America

by Peter Silver

"No recent work of history...has presented such a distinctive―and beautifully resonant―authorial voice."―John Demos, Yale University The colonial communities of eighteenth-century America were perhaps the most racially, ethnically, and religiously mixed societies on earth. Lutherans and Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics, and Covenentors, the Irish, the German, the French, the Welsh―groups that rarely intermingled in Europe―were thrown together when they confronted the American countryside. Rather than embracing the inescapable and ever-increasing diversity, the European settler communities had their very existence threatened by the tensions and fears among their own groups. Only through "Indian-hating"―in both military and rhetorical forms―could the splintered colonists find a common ground.In potent, graceful prose that sensitively unearths the social complexity and tangled history of colonial relations, Peter Silver gives us an astonishingly vivid picture of eighteenth-century America. He straddles cultural history, political history, social history, and ethnohistory to offer groundbreaking insights into the seminal forces that continue to shape the United States today. 15 illustrations

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Native American, Native Americans, American, Indigenous

432 pages, Hardcover

First published November 26, 2007

Reviews

[Greg Coates · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than a history book, this narrative of the mid-Atlantic colonies of the 18th century explores how humans behave in the face of the "other." Fear, suspicion, violence. The book strangely seems profoundly appropriate for 21st century America.

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant analysis of what fear does to create prejudice, examining a fascinating assortment of writings from colonial period that show early Americans quaking in their boots at the mere thought of Indians. Silver has thoughtfully drawn on 20th century studies of the genesis of racial prejudice to interpret foreign relations between Indian nations and colonial Americans, documenting not only the rise of attitudes that congeal into hardened stereotypes, but also the mutation of rumor into firm opinion, and border incident into national policy. Revealing, revisionist and gripping. Provides essential materials for understanding frontier conflagration of next phase in War of 1812.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well documented tale of how North America invented the idea of white people/how so many diverse sectarian and ethnic groups became a common cause living under the shadow of Indian War and the fear it produced. Definitely gets a bit repetitive after a point but the extensive quotes from primary sources clearly show the evolution of the author's thesis directly.

[Sam Newton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think there's an interesting thesis, but it is very had to find in this book: colonists adopt the "white people" label during the Seven Years war and united together against the common threat of Indians. They brutally fought their common enemy and ultimately united as a tolerant people. Huge overuse of quotations to the point of distraction. I had to labor through what should have been a much easier read. This book wandered back and through through so many inconsistent points that I had difficulty pulling out a cogent argument: 1) we fear indians, 2) this anti-indian sublime causes people to NOT be violent?; 3) people seize economic opportunity to scalp indians, but no one actually claims them; 4) Paxton boys causes increased democracy; 5) the American Revolution was all about the anti-Indian sublime. Honestly, it felt like he smoked one too many in this book...

[Kelli Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Silver presents information about the Indian Wars of the 1700s and how these wars shaped the development of American culture and government. Silver describes how wars with Native American groups contributed to the development of a more unified "American" colonial culture rather than a fractured "European" colonial culture.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provided me with intriguing new perspectives on the period from just before the French and Indian War, through the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The unfortunate loss of 2 stars was a result of insufficient organization, lack of clarity, and lack of balance. Yes, I understand that this book has received recognition from those far better versed than I, but this is just one layman's perspective. Also, the subtitle is very misleading. This book is not a treatment of how early America was transformed by Indian warfare. It is very limited in scope, covering only Pennsylvania. As a Midwesterner transplanted to Pennsylvania for about seven years, I was most gratified to learn more of the history of my adopted state. However, Peter Silver fell short of the goal stated in the subtitle. To do a complete job of that, he would have needed to look at how all regions of the Colonies/country were affected by Indian warfare.

What follows is a mostly negative review. I want to point out, however, that Silver raises issues I find most interesting and worthy of further investigation. To demonstrate that I do not reject the book out of hand, you should know that I read this book because it was loaned to me by a good friend. However, I found the book intriguing enough to purchase my own copy. I wanted it in my library. I had never considered how opposition to “Indian” groups would forge a national unity between white European Americans. How could such atrocities on both sides lead to any semblance of tolerance? I was also flummoxed to read that many leaders among the Colonists applied anti-Indian epithets to each other when the other side refused to side with them. How ignorant and slimy! Furthermore to consider that those invectives were used against the British forces to effectively cement animosity toward them--amazing! Silver presented his points in a well-written, captivating manner. His points are quite uncomfortable, but they demand consideration. So I appreciated the added understanding he brought to my favorite period of American history. Still, there were elements of it that bothered me, and that hurt the impact of the book as a whole.

The first difficulty I had with this book had to do with how the material was organized. In an attempt to trace the unfolding of rhetoric between early Americans and "Indians," Silver breaks events out of chronological order to suit his theme. That in itself is not so bad; I recently read Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency by Logan Beirne , which used the same mechanic, and did so very effectively. The difference was that Beirne did a much better job of reorienting the reader with the overall chronology each time he made a time jump. His reminders were succinct and effective; I hardly found myself lost at all.

By contrast, I'm afraid Silver didn't do as well. He hops around quite a lot, apparently trusting the reader to have memories as sharp as his. I admit it: I don't. Some memory joggers along the way would have been a big help. I kept reading people's names I knew he'd mentioned before, but I couldn't remember exactly where in the book I'd been introduced to them. He'd revisit events that he'd discussed so far back that I couldn't recall some of the important details. I felt lost quite a bit as I jumped backward, forward and sideways in time, with very few signposts to keep me oriented to the overall historical flow. His thesis was interesting enough that I kept pressing ahead, but the book was hard work to read and left me feeling disappointed in myself for not assimilating and compiling the scattered bits of information well enough. I'll own up to my own dimness as part of the blame, but Silver could have done much better in organizing his material. And may I say that I'm not sure that Silver's thesis really required all of that helter-skelter jumping about to effectively demonstrate.

Though the lack of organization in the book made the book difficult to read, the lack of clarity and balance made it really frustrating at times. Silver's main points, as I understand them, are 1) Much of the impetus for war against the "Indian" population was based upon fear and a system of fabricated atrocities, which he names the "anti-Indian sublime"; 2) Anti-Indian fear and hate was applied to smear and marginalize even European Americans who did not favor oppressing and eradicating them; and 3) Somehow, a sense pan-European American unity was forged as over and against the threat posed by "Indians." This fostered a sense of diversity and tolerance...so long as you weren't and "Indian" or an "Indian-lover," I presume.

Let me suggest, however, that in attempting to establish his point, he overdid it to the point of casting doubt on its credibility. Silver showed that to begin with, there were genuine, terroristic attacks upon white settlements which were calculated to spread such fear that the whites would leave. Slain whites were scalped, dismembered, and otherwise posed in genuinely disturbing ways. These attacks certainly made the impression they planned to make, but these barbaric tableaux backfired on the "Indians." The graphic images haunted the imaginations of white Americans so much that they became an obsession. The gory scenes were told and re-told in newspapers, pamphlets and broadsides, and the "anti-Indian sublime" became a literary sensation. These accounts sold like hotcakes.

Tragedy was in the making, however, as further "Indian" attacks were reported or completely fabricated. In the case of actual attacks, the details were promiscuously embellished to include all the macabre scenes that sold the most copy. Silver made it seem like each incident was an opportunity to cut and paste the very same sensational tropes, over and over again. As a result, the barbarity of attacks grew with the telling, generating an artificial fever pitch of fear and hatred for all "Indians." This hysteria would have horrible consequences as it provided an environment in which a great number of non-combatant "Indians" were wiped out to slake whites' appetite for retribution and bloodshed. The actual perpetrators of attacks (if the attacks really happened to begin with) conducted their strikes with lightning speed and disappeared without a trace. Pursuing white militias almost never caught up with them. Having no actual murderers to strike back against, the whites insisted upon a handier outlet for their vengeful impulses: the innocent, women, children, etc. The most heartrending account was toward the end of the book, with the massacre of approximately ninety Gnadenhutten and Salem Moravian "Indians," who were complete pacifists. As a result, some of these peaceful Native Americans forsook the Christian faith entirely and went back to warlike ways.

I cannot express how disgusted I was as I read these things. Blind, unthinking vengeance against the innocent, just because a person needs an outlet for their hatred is one of the worst evils I can think of. I felt newly ashamed at the depth of injustice perpetrated by some of my countrymen in the past. As I continued to read, however, something didn't seem right. The way that Silver portrayed our warfare against Native American groups made it seem like virtually all of the clashes were based on false information or sheer, undisciplined hatred on our part. Every now and then he would drop hints that some "Indian" attacks had actually happened, and that they were pretty bad. However, he played down the real strikes so far as to mention them in passing, mumbling through them and then getting right back to unjust attacks that we had mounted. I started, once again, to feel lost. I found myself repeatedly thinking, "Now wait a minute--was this one an actual attack or a fabricated one?" That is why I am charging Silver with a lack of clarity in his book: I kept wondering whether a particular account was true or trumped up. Silver really should have taken more pains to be clear in this area.

On the other hand, I suspect the lack of clarity might be chalked up to a lack of balance. The reader does not need to look very hard to understand the ideological place from which Silver is writing. His bias speaks loud and clear. I know that it is politically correct to blame America for everything, and politically incorrect to portray oppressed people as EVER having done anything wrong. Most, however, would agree with the common wisdom that in most conflicts, it is doubtful that the all of the blame can be assigned to one party. It is more likely that both parties contributed to the conflict in some way, even if one side deserves more of the blame than the other. In order to fully understand what led up to these horrible conflicts, I need to understand where both parties erred, and how things might have been done differently.

It is here that Silver missed out on the chance to write a truly great book. Early in the book, he states that some of the “Indians” staged terroristic attacks on white settlements, and promptly fled beyond the reach of militias. He documents at great length the unreasoning fear this stirred within the white population, and later relates how whites attacked a large number of innocents. Lamentably, Silver does not connect the dots between these developments! A useful and thorough analysis of these events demands asking some politically incorrect questions. Could it be said that more radical elements among the “Indian” nations, closing their minds to diplomacy and determining to attack in a shocking and graphic manner, actually cast a die which would doom their future as a people in the mid-Atlantic? Could those radical elements, with their hit-and-run tactics, be in some measure accountable for the deaths among their own innocent people? These questions are positively begged by the accounts related by Silver. Yet he seems so eager to press his own presuppositions that he never even entertains such questions. Surely his bias jeopardizes the effectiveness of his arguments.

I want to make one thing abundantly clear at this point: I do not come from the “America can do no wrong” camp. In fact, as I read this book, Silver was “preaching to the choir.” I embarked upon this reading with my own presupposition that for all the reasons we have to celebrate our national heritage, we have nonetheless behaved in shameful, dishonest, and dishonorable ways toward our Native American community over the years. Silver did not need to convince me of this.

Setting aside my basic agreement with that point, I also believe that one cannot allow one’s presuppositions to prevent a deeper understanding of events. If we are to grow and learn from our history, even our tragedies and injustices must be examined from all angles. Even if I am willing to assign the majority of the blame to European overreaction, I also need to understand how various “Indian” factions may have blundered and made things worse for themselves. Sadly, Silver allowed bias to prevent him from investigating the larger picture.

This leads to another major peril of a biased presentation of historical events: pressing so heavily on only one side of an issue tends to cast doubt on a perfectly valid point that is worthy of serious thought. When one refuses to even address alternate explanations, the audience notices the deficiency and begins to wonder if the author “protests too much.” There is a danger of having one’s perspective dismissed out-of-hand, assigned to the trash heap of biased, revisionist pieces of hack-work. I am perfectly willing to entertain alternate viewpoints, but I need to be shown that they arise from deep study of the whole picture.

To summarize, this book was exceedingly well-researched and well-written. The points brought forward are controversial but demand to be taken seriously. I will be thinking about them for years to come, and I am grateful for this. However, the disorganization, lack of clarity, and bias demonstrated by the author seriously undermine the cogency of his arguments. The flaws, however, do not give the reader any excuse to dismiss his efforts, or to fail in giving his arguments serious consideration. So perhaps he has the last word after all.

[Raechel Guest · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book. It delves into a history that has been woefully overlooked, and it touches on an interesting analysis of generational conflict, but it is unfortunately flawed. Ultimately, I think the book tries to do too much, skimming the surface of history and leaping to misinformed conclusions.

As other reviewers have noted, the narrative jumps back and forth between decades; this jumbled approach obscures any possible cause and effect, and confuses the reader.

The book seems to pushing a very disturbing narrative: that a culture of white supremacy and racism was created by Native Americans, as if the Europeans had no choice but to become racists because the Native Americans refused to bow before them. The perspective presented was very one-sided, told almost exclusively from the viewpoint of the colonists. Perhaps revealing is the author's choice to rely on the generic term "Indians." Although he does sometimes reference individual nations, particularly the Delaware, there is no sense of communities presented, just nameless Indians.

In his critique of the Native American methods of warfare, Silver reinforced the narrative of the "savage," presenting the colonial governments as somehow innocent of wrongdoing. This portion of the book would have been better served by comparing methods of warfare in Pennsylvania to methods of warfare in Scotland, for example. It would also be interesting to compare the English treatment of the Scots after Culloden to their treatment of Native Americans. Instead, Silver suggests that the colonial governments were entirely reactionary, even though their treatment of the tribes was consistent with the English treatment of every other land they colonized.

I was disappointed by the cursory look at the frontier during the Revolutionary War. Silver mentioned one "Indian Spy" with some surprise, as if he did not realize that this was an important part of Fort Pitt's activities during the 1780s. He also left out any substantial mention of the Yellow Creek massacre of 1774, which was a major event in frontier relations in which the colonists committed the atrocities.

With all of this said, however, I should point out that the book is worth reading, despite its flaws. I hope there will be more scholarship in this subject area someday.

[Paul Brewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book. Silver examines a very narrow period in a very specific place -- frontier Pennsylvania from the 1750s to the 1780s -- but the conclusions he draws illuminate the process through which racism emerged in the United States.

In my experience, most people today have an understanding of racism roughly as follows: "Europeans have at least since the time of the Crusades in the twelfth century perceived themselves at war with people of a different colour, and have generally regarded themselves and their culture as superior and entitled to lord it over what Kipling called 'Gentiles... or lesser breeds without the law'." Basically, this understanding is not only completely wrong; it is also an obstacle to resolving the persisting contradictions of racism in white-majority multicultural societies in Europe and the Americas. Silver's book goes a long way towards describing a process through which fear of American Indians resulted in a dislike of American Indians and in which the military success of European settlers over the British Army and their American Indian allies became a sense of superiority of 'white' over 'red'.

Unfortunately for the 'general reader' this is a resolutely scholarly work almost wholly lacking in narrative drive. The text comes to life now and again, but the thematic tone of the chapters overwhelms the chronology of the process. Furthermore, many of the insights only become strongly apparent when the accompanying scholarly apparatus is consulted in conjunction with the main text. The result is a bit of a slog, but well worth the effort for someone interested in the history of racism, the history of Colonial America or the history of the American frontier.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entry #8 in #LarryReadsTheBancroftWinners. Silver (professor of history at Rutgers) won the award in 2008. Rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up

Silver's book is the least impressive Bancroft winner I've read so far. Admittedly its subject isn't in my academic wheelhouse by any stretch, but I'm hard pressed to summarize its argument. The book seems to be an answer in search of an important historical question.

Focused on the middle Atlantic colonies (but mostly Pennsylvania) in the late colonial and Revolutionary periods, Our Savage Neighbors seems to argue that the widespread fear that white colonists had of Indian savagery had the perverse effect of dividing instead of uniting the colonists, who were from a very wide range of ethnicities and religions. That is, one would expect fear of Native Americans would bring all whites together as a means of defending themselves from depredation. But, Silver notes, it had the opposite effect: the colonists closest to the frontier (and therefore most likely to suffer violence at Indian hands) judged their white compatriots by the extent to which they were sympathetic to the frontiersmen and their plight. And many such (especially the large numbers of Quakers) were seen to be more sympathetic to the Natives than their victims. This disunity laid a groundwork of distrust among the white population, which would not be ameliorated until after the Revolution.

Well researched but not particularly well written, in large measure because there's not much of a narrative structure to be had here. Can't say it didn't deserve to win the Bancroft, but I can say that this isn't a great book.

[Jessica]

In Our Savage Neighbors, Peter Silver argues that fear was central to the development of eighteenth-century America. While “whiteness” as a category is taken for granted today, Silver demonstrates the various groups that would later fall into this grouping were often at odds. It was through fear and “Indian-hating” that a shared white identity was able to emerge. Perhaps most interesting--albeit brief--is Silver’s discussion of a Pan-Indian identity which he argues emerged in response to Europeans and predated “whiteness”. It is also worth noting that Silver draws an important distinction between Europeans on the frontier and in cities. While it was those in rural areas that were coming in contact with indigenous people, it was urban dwellers that took these accounts, adjusted them to their needs and disseminated them. In his later chapters, Silver argues that violence against Indians while driven by fear was highly symbolic and evolved to reflect the shift towards racism. While both the subtitle and introduction suggest that Silver’s study will have a larger focus, the work centers on Pennsylvania. This is problematic given Silver’s reliance on settler accounts for sources which makes the study, at times, feel one-sided. Nevertheless, Our Savage Neighbors is well written and engaging.

[Amanda Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does an excellent job at examining how European/ Native relations in the Revolutionary Era shape the new nations politics and cultural expectations. If you ever wondered why and how the United States developed its controversial policies in regards Natives then this book will help you gain a better understanding. It reads like a novel and has several sweeping passages that keep you engrossed until the end. It is very well sourced though which means it's very graphic and gory but still worth the read.

[Nrosenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silver tracks the relationship between Native Americans and colonists carefully and honestly. It’s a fascinating look into how the United States of America became the United States of America.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for honors thesis

[Liam Despard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explains how all modern notions of race come from the early American colonies. It showcases how our inert sense of fear of the other can end in atrocities and shape civilizations.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative, interesting topic, kinda dry

[Zachary Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written book that clearly makes a subtle argument with some big implications about how we think race operates in America.

Silver argues that the creation of whiteness was the result of Indian War. The book takes place in Pennsylvania from 1750-1780 or so. In the beginning, PA was so divided by religion and ethnic difference that a sense of gradual integration was not present at all, and that being Indian or German was the same difference to people. This changes with the Seven Years' War and the end of the Long Peace in PA history. By charting gruesome written accounts, Silver shows how fear and hysteria swept PA settler communities in the wake of Indian attacks. Indians fought in ways to instill terror disproportionate to their strength, and it worked. This fear, and lack of settler organization created nearly total chaos. Out of this chaos, Silver demonstrates how this psychological pressure led Whites to find common cause with one another, creating a new sense of "whiteness" while targeting Indians as an "other" and perceived race traitors like the Quakers. This Indian hatred succeeded in dehumanizing Indians, massacres like Gnaddenhutten in the 1770s would have been unheard of thirty years prior. Ironically, this anti-Indian hatred created the most pluralistic, welcoming society in the world, and was a precursor to contemporary attitudes--but it was borne out of Indian blood.

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely horrid book and would not recommend to anyone. Considering this book won the Bancroft Prize, I was expecting much more. I suspect the prize was awarded due to the unique research analyzed and not for any other reason.

There are no complaints on the research itself, but there are major flaws for the "book" portion. While the author clearly defines the thesis, it is much too broad. The author utilizes far too many quotes within the book and has little analysis. Many of the paragraphs consist of one sentence of analysis, one sentence of transition to source, and four to five sentences of source quotation.

Chapter structure is also poorly executed. The author fails to introduce how the chapter fits into the overall thesis and fails to conclude anything. Chapters also bounce around between Native and European (using the term loosely) analysis and have no transition to clarify what the author is trying to argue. Many sentence structures are horrible and it seems the author is attempting to make himself sound more intelligent than his vocabulary will allow. (Don't use 8 words when 5 will do)

Overall, this book is loosely organized, contains too many fluff quotes, lacks analysis and the thesis is lost in the narrative.

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting description of how the war between Indians and white colonists unified colonial America before the onset of the revolution.

Despite the broad title, the book focuses almost entirely on Pennsylvania, and specifically on Pennsylvania during the Seven Years War and its aftermath. It's an interesting choice because the Quaker Penn family's early "Peace Policy" meant that the state was relatively free of Indian war until the 1750s. The vicious battles during this time, then, came as even more of a shock.

Silver's main thesis is that the Indian wars served to unify a disparate white colonial body that had previously been focused on religious and ethnic differences. Silver has some great quotes early in the book demonstrating how the religious pluralism of the New World originally forced believers away from tolerance and into purifying and divisive "revitalization movements." Presbyterians were told to renew their faith "in its former Purity" amidst two-day outdoor "covenant renewals" with dozens of ministers administering confession. Lutheran minister Heinrich Muhlenberg rejected "disorderly groups...who call themselves Lutherans" and condemned a serving girl who "forgo[t:] her German tongue," urging people to return to the old, strict German ways. Quakers too became increasingly insular as the 18th century went on, rejecting five times as many marriages as they had earlier and expelling more and more people for drunkenness and Sabbath breaking.

Most interestingly, the Indians themselves were overcome by a series of purifying religious revival movements. Nanticoke in 1749 proclaimed that God "had made brown and white people separately," and demanded distinctive Indian ways. Neolin, a Delaware, urged Indians in 1762 to "quit all Commerce with White People and Clothe themselves with skins."

When the Seven Years War arrived whites were forced to unify against the Indian threat. The most interesting thing here, though, is that the battles between the two groups were so rarely set-piece affairs, but more often barroom fights or farming squabbles that descended into extreme violence, which paradoxically shows just how close these two groups remained to the end.

The best part of the book is the continual descriptions of the fluid frontier in pre-war America, with Indians living in Christian mission towns, and with Indians travelling on white back-roads and trading in white Philadelphia. Early settlers even lynched those who attacked Indians, in order to preserve the peace between the two groups. But the war changed all that. Lynch presents a fascinating picture of a country that became more unified by becoming more divisive.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with most of the skeptical reviewers here on Goodreads: this book is pretty disorganized, imbalanced, and ultimately way too long for the argumentative punch it delivers. Silver's argument reminds me a bit of Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, but in a much less effective and more ponderous package. The argument is that Penn. before the mid-1750's was deeply internally divided on religious and ethnic grounds to the point of barely functioning. Then 3 decades of wars with Indians on the frontier caused whites to downplay differences among themselves, play up the Indian threat, and demonize those suspected of helping or sympathizing with the Indians (especially the Quakers, French, and British). They developed a dramatized way of writing about Indian attacks called the "anti-Indian sublime" that made more politically effective speech and the silencing of those who opposed harsh policies against the Indians (not unlike the way that graphic descriptions of how bad terrorist detainees are have been used to silence criticism of certain interrogation techniques). Silver argues that this process facilitated the rise of tolerance and expanded democratic politics among whites, who sympathized with and feared the white frontiersmen who both fought off native attacks and occasionally marched to Philadelphia to demand action from the colonial government. Perfectly interesting thesis, but I would have liked to see how/whether this process played out in other colonies.

A big problem with the book is the cognitive dissonance the reader experiences after reading the title and then the book. The book promises to show a transformation in early America, but it's narrowly focused on Pennsylvania. That's a lot of reading just to understand 30 years of Indian-American relations in one colony. This process might not apply to slave states or that had cleared out Indians long before the mid-18th century. Finally, some of the chapters are much ado about very little. The chapter on "Fearing Indians" basically just establishes (in 25 pages or so) that the colonists were afraid of being killed by the Indians in various gruesome ways. That should have been 2 or 3 pages.

On the positive side, Silver does transport you into historical moments very well with his thorough use of primary sources. You get a great sense of the politics and perspectives of Pennsylvania at the time and the page by page reading is mostly enjoyable. Silver can turn a phrase more deftly than most historians, but this book still could have been 220 rather than 300 pages.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a little misleading, and I don't know whether to blame the author or the publisher or who. The book is titled "Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America." But it is not really about "early America", it is about Pennsylvania. Silver tries, in the intro and conclusion, to make a case that the book is about the middle colonies in general, but really. No. It is about Pennsylvania. And very specifically, for much of the time, it is about Pennsylvania politics, and how people attacked the Quakers for being pro-Indian and accused them of not caring about poor European settlers on the frontier. The main point of the book is that PA contained a diverse group of European colonists, and they came together as a democracy in part through conflict with Indians. Anyone could mount an effective political attack by accusing their opponent of being soft on Indians. Hey Mr. Candidate...why do you hate Americans? Do you WANT innocent ladies and babes in arms to be tomahawked on the frontier? You don't? Then why did we see you meeting with a delegation of Indians last Tuesday? Were you not plotting with them to facilitate their barbaric slaughter of ruddy cheeked German farm children EVEN THEN?! Colonists always assigned some political enemy the role of Indian facilitator, so the Indians were always seen as the tools of some devious enemy. Then during the Revolution, it was the British who were (very effectively) accused of helping the Indians to murder poor farmers.
I was especially interested in Silver's account of the massacres of unarmed Indians by white militia, and how the pamphleteers tried to spin even these events. A bunch of drunken frontiersmen breaking into a stockade and murdering unarmed Indian families could be spun into a protest against government support of Indian refugees. These were people angry about taxes, not people who just wanted to murder defenseless children. Some pretty nasty stuff went on in this era.
I did end up a little disappointed though. I was sort of hoping this would go beyond PA, and it didn't. This is surely valuable to ponder, but I need more readings to show me how this relates to NY, Mass, the Carolinas, Virginia, etc.

[Sharon Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a good visit to a formative time in the Mid-Atlantic, full of dramatic events and a very good use of primary sources. However the rambling prose and ill-defined, incoherently presented thesis made this book far more of a meandering and speculative exercise in History than a solid argument as the title suggests. Too many run-sentences, too many run-on thoughts, made this book quite a maze of pleasantly narrative but rather irritatingly disorganized presentation. Sitting around a fire with a drink and talking with the author might be very pleasant. Trying to distill the didactic potential out of the written text was a bit of tedious task. Still, it gave an on-the-ground sense of having visited that time. Or at least, having visited that time and place as much as is possible for a bookish arm-chair time-traveler.

[Kallie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-narrated, densely documented history of how European groups (including Irish militiamen) joined against Quakers and Native Americans to promote the "anti-Indian sublime," and justify murder and pillage against peaceful Indians in the mid-Atlantic. British alliance with Indians who still fought European settlement fueled indignation and united disparate, formerly feuding groups who joined to fight British rule. The sanitized, entirely noble narrative taught in American public schools is undermined by this much more interesting, believable account.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rating... A tedious work I had to fight to finish. The writing wasn't bad or difficult, nor the subject matter especially dull; but I was underwhelmed the whole way through and found nothing particularly revelatory to make it worth my while. Must have been a bad year for Bancroft considerations for this to have won.

[Jamie Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was hard to grasp his thesis, I'm still not sure if I do. It appears that "Our Savage Neighbors" is about how the colonists were also savages to their Indian neighbors. Silver over uses quotes to a point that it distracted me more than it helped me. He also does not have a set style, he often jumps around the different decades and re-tells stories. I struggled to finish this book.

[Brandon Righi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential read if you're seeking an understanding of the American character and history. I would rate this up there with other classics such as American Slavery, American Freedom.

This is not a jingoistic history––be prepared to be saddened by what you learn. But the knowledge is empowering and enlightening.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the worst written books I have read. Informative but poorly contrived with a style that hard to follow. His use of quotes throughout make it even more difficult to follow exactly what he is saying and it questions whether it really is his work.

[Jenny Smoddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well- supported thesis examining how anti-Indian sentiment developing around the violence of the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars served to unite the divided "white" community and eventually create a racial hatred as those whites gained strength and a desire for territorial expansion.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book, homie folded quite a lot of primary source quotations into the meringue (the book could have been 20 pages shorter), but on the whole, the thesis was well supported and the prose was engaging.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

as a transplant to PA, this book gave me a lot of history of many of the hills and valleys I've ridden my bicycle over.

[Rodger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Our Savage Neighbor by Peter Silver is a book that was really hard to fallow and I did not enjoy reading it at all.