Red Brethren: The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and the Problem of Race in Early America
New England Indians created the multitribal Brothertown and Stockbridge communities during the eighteenth century with the intent of using Christianity and civilized reforms to cope with white expansion. In Red Brethren, David J. Silverman considers the stories of these communities and argues that Indians in early America were racial thinkers in their own right and that indigenous people rallied together as Indians not only in the context of violent resistance but also in campaigns to adjust peacefully to white dominion. All too often, the Indians discovered that their many concessions to white demands earned them no relief.
In the era of the American Revolution, the pressure of white settlements forced the Brothertowns and Stockbridges from New England to Oneida country in upstate New York. During the early nineteenth century, whites forced these Indians from Oneida country, too, until they finally wound up in Wisconsin. Tired of moving, in the 1830s and 1840s, the Brothertowns and Stockbridges became some of the first Indians to accept U.S. citizenship, which they called "becoming white," in the hope that this status would enable them to remain as Indians in Wisconsin. Even then, whites would not leave them alone.
Red Brethren traces the evolution of Indian ideas about race under this relentless pressure. In the early seventeenth century, indigenous people did not conceive of themselves as Indian. They sharpened their sense of Indian identity as they realized that Christianity would not bridge their many differences with whites, and as they fought to keep blacks out of their communities. The stories of Brothertown and Stockbridge shed light on the dynamism of Indians' own racial history and the place of Indians in the racial history of early America.
1110798556
Red Brethren: The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and the Problem of Race in Early America
New England Indians created the multitribal Brothertown and Stockbridge communities during the eighteenth century with the intent of using Christianity and civilized reforms to cope with white expansion. In Red Brethren, David J. Silverman considers the stories of these communities and argues that Indians in early America were racial thinkers in their own right and that indigenous people rallied together as Indians not only in the context of violent resistance but also in campaigns to adjust peacefully to white dominion. All too often, the Indians discovered that their many concessions to white demands earned them no relief.
In the era of the American Revolution, the pressure of white settlements forced the Brothertowns and Stockbridges from New England to Oneida country in upstate New York. During the early nineteenth century, whites forced these Indians from Oneida country, too, until they finally wound up in Wisconsin. Tired of moving, in the 1830s and 1840s, the Brothertowns and Stockbridges became some of the first Indians to accept U.S. citizenship, which they called "becoming white," in the hope that this status would enable them to remain as Indians in Wisconsin. Even then, whites would not leave them alone.
Red Brethren traces the evolution of Indian ideas about race under this relentless pressure. In the early seventeenth century, indigenous people did not conceive of themselves as Indian. They sharpened their sense of Indian identity as they realized that Christianity would not bridge their many differences with whites, and as they fought to keep blacks out of their communities. The stories of Brothertown and Stockbridge shed light on the dynamism of Indians' own racial history and the place of Indians in the racial history of early America.
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Red Brethren: The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and the Problem of Race in Early America
New England Indians created the multitribal Brothertown and Stockbridge communities during the eighteenth century with the intent of using Christianity and civilized reforms to cope with white expansion. In Red Brethren, David J. Silverman considers the stories of these communities and argues that Indians in early America were racial thinkers in their own right and that indigenous people rallied together as Indians not only in the context of violent resistance but also in campaigns to adjust peacefully to white dominion. All too often, the Indians discovered that their many concessions to white demands earned them no relief.
In the era of the American Revolution, the pressure of white settlements forced the Brothertowns and Stockbridges from New England to Oneida country in upstate New York. During the early nineteenth century, whites forced these Indians from Oneida country, too, until they finally wound up in Wisconsin. Tired of moving, in the 1830s and 1840s, the Brothertowns and Stockbridges became some of the first Indians to accept U.S. citizenship, which they called "becoming white," in the hope that this status would enable them to remain as Indians in Wisconsin. Even then, whites would not leave them alone.
Red Brethren traces the evolution of Indian ideas about race under this relentless pressure. In the early seventeenth century, indigenous people did not conceive of themselves as Indian. They sharpened their sense of Indian identity as they realized that Christianity would not bridge their many differences with whites, and as they fought to keep blacks out of their communities. The stories of Brothertown and Stockbridge shed light on the dynamism of Indians' own racial history and the place of Indians in the racial history of early America.
David J. Silverman is Professor of History at George Washington University. He is the coauthor of Ninigret, Sachem of the Niantics and Narragansetts, also from Cornell, and author of Faith and Boundaries.
Table of Contents
Prologue: That Overwhelming Tide of Fate 1. All One Indian 2. Converging Paths 3. Betrayals 4. Out from Under the Burdens 5. Exodus 6. Cursed 7. Red Brethren 8. More Than They Know How to Endure 9. Indians or Citizens, White Men or Red? Epilogue: "Extinction" and a "Common Ancestor" Notes Index
What People are Saying About This
Karen Kupperman
Red Brethren is a pathbreaking and important book. Without soft-pedaling or minimizing the record of Euroamerican greed and duplicity, David J. Silverman demonstrates that many Indians were able to assimilate Christianity and make it their own mode of reaffirming their communities and taking control of their own destinies. Silverman makes clear that this was neither an easy nor a triumphant process; one of this book's admirable qualities is its elucidation of the effects of the factions that rent Indian groups and the way alcohol destroyed lives and plans. Silverman replaces the traditional story of early Indian defiance followed by inevitable defeat and degradation with a story in which Indians assimilate new cultural tools and continue their struggle to carve out a place for themselves in the emerging American order.
Jenny Hale Pulsipher
David J. Silverman's new book is that rare thing: a superbly researched work of scholarship and a thoroughly engaging story. In Red Brethren, Silverman tackles the subject of the origins and development of American racism within a surprising context, the 'Christian Indian Movement' of the Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians. Several of the chief actors in the book left substantial papers, and Silverman mines them to bring these people to life. In particular, Silverman paints a moving portrait of Samson Occom, whose journey from enthusiasm to despair forms the core of this book. Red Brethren challenges the trope of Christianity as a tool of colonial subjugation. In Silverman's telling, Indians creatively applied Christian beliefs to their quest for political independence and cultural revitalization, a striking counterpart to contemporary nativist movements. But, like those secular movements, the Christian Indians' quest for a unified community ultimately fell prey to white expansion and racism. This is a thoughtful, beautifully crafted, heartbreaking book.
Nancy Shoemaker
In this deeply researched and beautifully written book, David J. Silverman tells the history of the Brothertown community and elegantly expresses the dilemma of race as Indians in America faced it on a daily basis over several centuries. Promised independence and survival if they adopted the trappings of civilization—Christianity, plow agriculture, and European-style clothing, houses, and manners—they discovered that these were false promises and that, in the end, their racial difference as Indians mattered most to the Euroamericans who surrounded them, no matter where they attempted to root their community.
Peter C. Mancall
David J. Silverman's Red Brethren is much more than an excellent study of how indigenous Americans coped with conquest and colonization. It is also a meditation on the perplexing meaning of 'race' and a compelling portrait of the intersection of religion, identity, and society in early America.
