Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America

by Karen Ordahl Kupperman

In this vividly written book, prize-winning author Karen Ordahl Kupperman refocuses our understanding of encounters between English venturers and Algonquians all along the East Coast of North America in the early years of contact and settlement. All parties in these dramas were uncertain―hopeful and fearful―about the opportunity and challenge presented by new realities. Indians and English both believed they could control the developing relationship. Each group was curious about the other, and interpreted through their own standards and traditions. At the same time both came from societies in the process of unsettling change and hoped to derive important lessons by studying a profoundly different culture. These meetings and early relationships are recorded in a wide variety of sources. Native people maintained oral traditions about the encounters, and these were written down by English recorders at the time of contact and since; many are maintained to this day. English venturers, desperate to make readers at home understand how difficult and potentially rewarding their enterprise was, wrote constantly of their own experiences and observations and transmitted native lore. Kupperman analyzes all these sources in order to understand the true nature of these early years, when English venturers were so fearful and dependent on native aid and the shape of the future was uncertain. Building on the research in her highly regarded book Settling with the Indians, Kupperman argues convincingly that we must see both Indians and English as active participants in this unfolding drama.

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

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2000

About the author

Karen Ordahl Kupperman is an American historian who specializes in colonial history in the Atlantic world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
She was born in North Dakota, but moved often during her childhood. She studied History at the University of Missouri, after which she obtained a prestigious Woodrow Wilson fellowship and attended Harvard University, graduating with a MA in 1962. She later attended the University of Cambridge to earn her PhD.

Reviews

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm writing a review of this book for class. It is a very thoughtful book about how contact between the Indians and the English in the late 16th and early 17th century was an opportunity for each society to evaluate their own culture using the other group as a mirror.

[Mandi Rollinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable book that argues that we need to distinguish between the English who lived and experienced time with Native Americans and those who talked about the colony from afar. Very detailed, very good descriptions. However, doesn't give as much detail from Indian perspective as she claims to; conversely, does sufficiently pick apart English perspectives and does not skimp on their assumptions or countering anachronistic views. Slightly repetitive. Could use more clear top sentences / sign posting for readers. Book has Introduction, but no Conclusion, sadly.

[Leda Frost · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kupperman challenges our long-view perception of the settlers, which affords us the knowledge of what eventually happened, and asks us instead of consider the intricacies of the developing relationships on both sides at a time when nothing was certain, with neither the Indians nor the English as dominant or as victims, but as simply people attempting to understand one another's cultures and clashing as a result. Those interested in the settlement era would be lacking if they did not pick up this book.

[Danice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched. This book is essential for understanding the historical context of interactions between the English (and other Europeans) and the American Indians from first contact to the establishment of permanent colonies and the formation of a new nation. This is key research about interactions before the French and Indian War and other conflicts in which Native Americans allied with colonists or European nations in war.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reasonable compilation of accounts of early encounters, and some attempt to put them in context of each group’s perspective. Decent but not stellar narrative.

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning piece of historical analysis, that I read with three hats on. The first, as a descendent of colonists who refuses to believe the simple myths and hierarchies of colonial history – the ideas of the superior Europeans and primitive indigenous peoples.

More importantly, though, I've read it as a tale the exposes the fragility of Empire in that it unpacks and exposes not only the utter dependence of early European/English colonists in America on the skills, knowledge, and relationships with (indigenous) Americans, but also the multi-layered character of their relationships: social, sexual, economic, religious, and so forth, along with all the conflicts these involve. Important elements come through making clear that the native-newcomer boundaries were far from clear and 'solid'. We see dissident puritans in New England in closer relationships with the Narragansett people than they were with other puritans in Plymouth, for instance. The stand-out chapter for me was the second to last where Kupperman explores ways that both Indians and English sought to incorporate their others, leading to a subtle and nuanced analysis of various liminal and interstital individuals, including an insightful if tantalisingly brief reading of Pocahontas (BTW – probably a nickname, and certainly not any of her 'real' names) and others who did not fit into either cultural world. She also makes the vital point that we so often miss in the turn to social and cultural history, and with it a tale of the fatal dispossession of native peoples, that colonialism was an economic project – ventures such as Jamestown and other English colonies in America were company ventures designed to make money for their investors, while others were also havens from religious intolerance, rather than projects primarily to take a superior European civilisation to the new world.

As a historian, however, the stunning thing about this book is Kupperman's use of sources. She starts from the premise that the only way colonists could know most of what they know about the world they write of is if the natives told them, so the colonists' sources can be read to reveal indigenous knowledge, voices, and experiences. It is a simple assumption that leads to some quite brilliant re-readings of the usual sources (John Smith, Thomas Harriot, and so on) to reveal the experiences of indigenous Americans. I am in awe of her grasp of the range of voices in the sources.

This is postcolonial history as it should be: the other includes the English colonists; the analysis addresses, as equally as possible, native and newcomer experiences; the tale told gets beyond the self-justifying narratives of colonial success to see the fragility of settlement, where the utter dependence of newcomer on native is so much more that the romantic Thanksgiving myths, alongside the deep-seated distrust and fear; the mutual incomprehension of each others mores, that in some cases led to avoidable war. It is, in short, a tale of colonialism as experienced by two groups of people, each of whom attempted to manage the experience in the way they new best and to ensure their own survival.

This is close to the finest piece of historical analysis I have read in years.

[David Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karen Ordahl Kupperman’s work Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America, published in 2000, seeks to dispel the narrative of inevitable mutual hostility and European conquest in her examination of the first decades of English colonization. “The key to understanding this early tentative period is, as far as possible, to sweep away our knowledge of the eventual outcome,” she argued, favoring instead and attempt to “recover the uncertainty and fear in which all sides live, as well as the genuine curiosity and sense of unimagined possibilities with which groups of people approached each other.“ Her method is to try to understand how each group perceived the other. She portrays the English through Indian eyes as insecure supplicants, incorporated as clients and understood within traditional ceremonial and political relationships. Rather than viewing the Indians as savage or racially alien, Kupperman argues that the Englishmen who encountered them first hand evaluated them for a kindred social order, and found them a reassuringly civilized society of perceived class distinctions. Conflict was not inevitable, and while more strident opinions of the savagery issued from Europe, those on the ground in the New World provided more nuanced views, were more pivotal in the trend of events, and had strong incentives to maintain peaceful relationships. The “most fundamental fact about the English colonies” was in her view that they “were first and foremost business ventures, and trade with the American natives was the best way of getting them established and making them profitable . . . Pouring money into a drain did nothing for England, and few would continue to do it for long.” Despite the eventual descent into violent confrontation, Kupperman finds it significant that a view of irreconcilable hostility and otherness never became entirely hegemonic wherever colonists and natives met, and alternate visions of coexistence persisted

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough, although the subject was interesting I feel that the author reiterated many points too much. I would enjoy reading a more popularized/narrative style book on this subject although it would be difficult.

[Jean Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great intro to Ethno History. I found Kupperman's extensive use and variety of primary sources to lend more credence to her argument.