At the Crossroads: Indians and Empires on a Mid-Atlantic Frontier, 1700-1763

by Jane T. Merritt

Examining interactions between native Americans and whites in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania, Jane Merritt traces the emergence of race as the defining difference between these neighbors on the frontier.

Before 1755, Indian and white communities in Pennsylvania shared a certain amount of interdependence. They traded skills and resources and found a common enemy in the colonial authorities, including the powerful Six Nations, who attempted to control them and the land they inhabited. Using innovative research in German Moravian records, among other sources, Merritt explores the cultural practices, social needs, gender dynamics, economic exigencies, and political forces that brought native Americans and Euramericans together in the first half of the eighteenth century.

But as Merritt demonstrates, the tolerance and even cooperation that once marked relations between Indians and whites collapsed during the Seven Years' War. By the 1760s, as the white population increased, a stronger, nationalist identity emerged among both white and Indian populations, each calling for new territorial and political boundaries to separate their communities. Differences between Indians and whites--whether political, economic, social, religious, or ethnic--became increasingly characterized in racial terms, and the resulting animosity left an enduring legacy in Pennsylvania's colonial history.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2003

Reviews

[Salvatore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good analysis and account of the back country of Pennsylvania during the first half of the 1700's until 1763. This book definitely helps with my research on resistance strategies used by native Americans in the Ohio Country. Although the book is not the best written work I have read it does provide very good footnotes to track further information on the subject. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Pennsylvania, the Old Northwest, the frontier, or early american colonialism before the Revolutionary war.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jane Merritt makes an excellent addition to the discussion of Indians in the Mid-Atlantic region during the age of empire. This is a complex topic and Merritt does an excellent job of sorting it out. On that note this is a complex topic and this is not a book a novice in the subject would want to start with. It assumes knowledge of the Iroquois and the covenant chain as well as the Seven Years war. (See my other reviews for suggestions on those topics).

Merritt's book analyzes a variety of cross sections of Delaware Indian culture and their relation with Pennsylvania's (Quakers, proprietors, and frontiersman), Iroquois, and the French. She looks at the role of language, women and religion and how these each affected the relationships between the various groups. Utilizing sources from local to state level she is able to get at a large cross section that allows for significant corroboration. Unlike many where there is an Indian view and a colonial view in this case there we have a variety of colonial sources since they each represented a different viewpoint. The book chronologically covers the famed Walking Purchase during the time of William Penn to the conclusion of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War) and how it shaped the frontier. The idea that Indians and colonists lived at a crossroads where trade dictated interactions are thoroughly explored. For those who want to gain a greater understanding of the Mid-Atlantic world in colonial times you cannot go wrong with this book.

[Aannedomm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merritt focuses this work on the interactions between Indians and Euroamericans on "crossroads," or spaces where the two groups interacted. Merritt's main argument is that the differences between the two groups became much more racialized by the 1760s. She uses a broad scope of examples, and careful reading is needed as the book is full of information.