Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery

by Margaret Ellen Newell

In Brethren by Nature, Margaret Ellen Newell reveals a little-known aspect of American English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of Indians. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists’ desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, including the Pequot War of 1637, King Philip’s War of 1675–76, and the northeastern Wabanaki conflicts of 1676–1749. When the wartime conquest of Indians ceased, New Englanders turned to the courts to get control of their labor, or imported Indians from Florida and the Carolinas, or simply claimed free Indians as slaves.

Drawing on letters, diaries, newspapers, and court records, Newell recovers the slaves’ own stories and shows how they influenced New England society in crucial ways. Indians lived in English homes, raised English children, and manned colonial armies, farms, and fleets, exposing their captors to Native religion, foods, and technology. Some achieved freedom and power in this new colonial culture, but others experienced violence, surveillance, and family separations.

Newell also explains how slavery linked the fate of Africans and Indians. The trade in Indian captives connected New England to Caribbean and Atlantic slave economies. Indians labored on sugar plantations in Jamaica, tended fields in the Azores, and rowed English naval galleys in Tangier. Indian slaves outnumbered Africans within New England before 1700, but the balance soon shifted. Fearful of the growing African population, local governments stripped Indian and African servants and slaves of legal rights and personal freedoms. Nevertheless, because Indians remained a significant part of the slave population, the New England colonies did not adopt all of the rigid racial laws typical of slave societies in Virginia and Barbados. Newell finds that second- and third-generation Indian slaves fought their enslavement and claimed citizenship in cases that had implications for all enslaved peoples in eighteenth-century America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Native American, American History, Indigenous, Womens, Grad School

329 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2015

Reviews

[Caeser Pink · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting piece of history. It really changed the way I view the colonist's relationship with the Native Americans.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book on a subject I knew virtually nothing about, and one that should be more well known.

[Thom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of interest perhaps mostly to folks in live in New England, but perhaps others interested in early American colonial history, this book answered many of my questions.

[Drick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this ground breaking book, Margaret Newell offers us a detailed account of the relationships between the Puritan/English settlers in New England with the indigenous peoples/tribes present when they arrived in the 17th century. though making captives in the Pequot and King Phillips wars, the European settlers enslaved indigenous people, especially women and children, captured in battle. the enslavement of the indigenous set the frame work for the enslavement of captive Africans brough to New England and sent to Barbados and other Carribean islands where they cultivate sugar sent back to New England to make run. This little know account of Indian interactions with the British/Puritans adds deeply to our understanding of the genocide and land capture made by the Puritan settlers.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

p 238 "Indian slavery became the forgotten story subsumed in the larger story of racialized slavery in both history and memory. . . Indians . . . were the objects of the first laws regarding slavery, and of the masters who competed for bound labor. . . Free and bound Native Americans resisted enslavement and prevented the English from defining all Indians as slaves. As a result, New England colonies created a slave regime that purposely refrained from clearly identifying which populations were susceptible to slavery and the precise conditions that slaves would face."

[BookSweetie]

So…it’s colonial American history but academic.
I did some close reading of certain chapters / lots of historic detail—but since I was actually looking for a more casual read, I skimmed other parts so it goes in my partial read folder. Mostly about 1600s and 1700s Native American servitude and slavery in colonial New England.

[Sherrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Kookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting information, but a bit too dry for casual reading.

[Foggygirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye opening and little known aspect of North American history, both horrifying and educational.

[Fallyn Smythe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best history book I've read.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Newell for my Unpacking 1619 Discussion Program.

Professor Newell discusses her book, Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery, which explores the enslavement of Indians by the English Colonists in New England. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists’ desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, focusing the conflicts on obtaining captives and slaves. We discuss how Pequot War of 1637 and King Philip’s War of 1675–76, solidified Native Americans as permanent slaves and led to racialized slave codes.

Check it out here