The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South Carolinians through the Era of Revolution Review

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(More customer reviews)"The Dividing Paths" by Tom Hatley is a commendable work of scholarship concerning Cherokees and South Carolinians in the colonial period. It is well researched with many quotes from primary sources. The book surveys Cherokee culture and interaction with South Carolinians in matters of trade, religion, intermarriage and kinship, and war. It should serve as a valuable reference for anyone studying Cherokee history or the colonial history of the southeastern United States.
The strongest part of this work is Hatley's description and research of the various military campaigns of the South Carolinians against the Cherokees. The reasons for going to war, the specific events of the campaigns, and their devastating results are explored with proper detail. Hatley gives account of the Yamassee War beginning in 1715, the three campaigns of the so-called "Cherokee War" from 1759-1761, and Cherokee and South Carolinian conflict with each other during the American Revolution. Through Hatley's narrative, insights and colorful quotes are also obtained on some of the prominent figures of the times: Governor James Glen, British General James Grant, Cherokee Chiefs Little Carpenter and Dragging Canoe, British Indian Superintendent John Stuart, Colonial General Andrew Pickens, and numerous others.
This book is highly recommended as an important academic resource.


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The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies Review

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(More customer reviews)Francis Jennings, long associated with the Newbury Library American Indian collections has brought his vast knowledge to bear on the subject of the Iriquois as the fearsome 5 or 6 nations who independently cowed both their fellow tribes and the English and French colonists. He proves it wasn't so with so many documents of which we have never heard in our schoolbook history texts that I wonder how such material escaped notice previously. In the process he slays some American Sacred Cows such as Francis Parkman. One learns that the Indian frontier was no such thing and didn't exist but was a commonly inhabited piece of terrain, peopled by various tribes and the European invaders who traded with them. Relations were, for the most part, reasonably amicable, which accounts for the fact that during later wars the Eastern Indians frequently exhibited what we call civilized treatment of enemies and prisoners. (Of course there were the exceptions, usually well justified.) But in the beginning, the Dutch, Swedes, English and French, all found it necessary to deal with the various tribes quite diplomatically in order to survive, and use them in their wars of empire with one another. Furs in return for trade goods were king. The undoubted reality is such a vast contrast with the accepted picture of our frontier that this book, as well as Jennings others in this series, should be required reading to repair the damage done in our schools by claptrap such as Parkman and other revered historians who followed his lead, writing off the Indians as barabarians and the frontier as a clearly delineated line across which whites stepped only if they were willing to take their lives into their hands. Instead we find two cultures living amicably in common communities up until the first half of the 1700's when the balance was upset by driving out the Indians such as the Delewares and Shawnees so that they located in the Ohio country and became relatively independent. The Iriquois had a large hand in this and it was their undoing. Read the book. It is a complicated subject but well worth digesting. I recommend reading it in small doses and having an atlas nearby.

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War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire Review

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(More customer reviews)I am going to offer a rave review, (admittedly of a favorite period), and want to disclaim the need for a disclaimer --- I do not know the author or have any connection to his University or publisher.
Gregory Dowd can hardly be accused of writing inaccessible history only to other historians on an obscure topic. The linkages in British Colonial Indian policy between the end of the French and Indian War and the Revolution are interesting in their own right. This account covers all perspectives, dealing with French attitudes; Pontiac's turbulent, adroit yet ultimately unpopular leadership; and above all the cultural and emotional influences at work in the era. Not merely about Pontiac's War, this work is aptly subtitled: Pontiac, The Indian Nations and the British Empire.
Of particular import is Dowd's sophisticated analysis of British policy paralleled with a sober yet, when appropriate, complimentary account of the methods of the Indian Nations. Dowd provides new insight in his focus on the issue of status and dignity as a motivating factor in Pontiac's War -- without ever collapsing into easy platitudes on the plight of Native Americans. Wholistic in the best sense of the word, the impact of Indian religion and its interaction with Christianity is also assessed.
Expert, well written, well researched, non-polemic; War Under Heaven, also offers seamless assessments of the work of other historians.
The fact that Dowd accomplishes so much in just 275 pages of text is a testament to good writing and the tightness of the text. Just as accessible to newcomer as to student of the era.

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