url for book review: Indians & English: Facing Off in Early Amer ica

[Doug Millison]

http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=19003996679907

 Karen Ordahl Kupperman. Indians & English: Facing Off in Early America.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. xi + 297 pp. Illustrations, notes,
index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8014-8282-8.  

"[...] In using Tacitus to discuss the Chesapeake region, Kupperman brings
in the recent work of scholars such as Frederic Gleach, Helen Rountree, and
Steven Potter. The result is a new understanding not of the Indians, but of
colonization's effects on seventeenth century England and how these
Englishmen saw the Indians they encountered. [...] This book's strength lays
in its ability to place the literature of the period within a larger
context. Many readers already know how New England's Indian allies were
appalled by the tactics of John Underhill and his forces at Mystic during
the Pequot War of 1636-37. Yet, Kupperman shows how Underhill's actions fit
a larger military picture. By 1649, Irish cities such as Drogheda suffered a
similar fate. English readers of Underhill's exploit would undoubtedly be
aware of mainland European cities which had suffered a similar fate during
the Thirty Years War. The result, therefore, is not a new understanding of
what happened at Mystic, but a broader context for interpreting the event.
This enlarged context is most obvious in her chapter "Incorporating the
Other" where she seamlessly blends the unique experiences of Squanto,
Hobbomock, and Pochohantas into a universal experience for seventeenth
century Indian-English interaction. "