The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast

by Jessica Yirush Stern

In The Lives in Objects, Jessica Yirush Stern presents a thoroughly researched and engaging study of the deerskin trade in the colonial Southeast, equally attentive to British American and Southeastern Indian cultures of production, distribution, and consumption. Stern upends the long-standing assertion that Native Americans were solely gift givers and the British were modern commercial capitalists. This traditional interpretation casts Native Americans as victims drawn into and made dependent on a transatlantic marketplace. Stern complicates that picture by showing how both the Southeastern Indian and British American actors mixed gift giving and commodity exchange in the deerskin trade, such that Southeastern Indians retained much greater agency as producers and consumers than the standard narrative allows. By tracking the debates about Indian trade regulation, Stern also reveals that the British were often not willing to embrace modern free market values. While she sheds new light on broader issues in native and colonial history, Stern also demonstrates that concepts of labor, commerce, and material culture were inextricably intertwined to present a fresh perspective on trade in the colonial Southeast.

Genres: History

268 pages, Paperback

Published February 20, 2017

Reviews

[Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. It was easy to read and comprehend her thesis and supporting points. It was an interesting take on the economic relationship between the Southeastern Native Americans and the colonist. The book focuses on commodity vs gift exchanges and the way in which culture influenced this exchange. The book asserted that unlike traditional notions that the Native Americans were giving gift because they culturally didn't understand the idea of trade, the Native Americans were quite comfortable trading. The Colonial government in actuality was a driving factor in gift exchange and was hesitant to allow more wide spread free trade. Seems well resourced with uses of primary sources, to drive the point home.