The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000–1927 by Jace Weaver (review)

From the very beginning, Jace Weaver’s Red Atlantic “provokes a conversation” (p. 32).

Whether it is through the clear objective to add a “Red” component to the already developed fields of “White” and “Black” Atlantic studies, or by merely advocating for new terminology and therefore a more nuanced “othering” of the Atlantic World, Weaver presents a logical and useful history of Western Hemisphere Indigenous people who crossed the Atlantic from the days of Viking exploration to the early twentieth century. It is a welcome contribution to the small collection of similar scholarship on the topic such as Carolyn Foreman’s Indians Abroad, 1493–1938 (Norman, 1943), Alden T. Vaughan’s Transatlantic Encounters (Cambridge, New York, 2006), and Kate Flint’s The Transatlantic Indian, 1776–1930 (Princeton, 2009).

Inspired by his article length analysis, originally published in the American Indian Quarterly, Weaver explores this history through the experiences of various actors that are organized into thematic chapters. Chapter one “For He Looks upon You as Foolish Children,” describes the involuntary travel of Indigenous slaves, captives and exiles. This is followed by chapter two “In the Service of Others,” that focuses on soldiers and sailors. Chapter three “Red Diplomats” examines the familiar stories of Indigenous diplomats and chapter four “A Gazing Stocke, Yea Even a Laughing Stocke” follows so-called celebrity Indians. Finally, chapter five “Fireside Travelers, Armchair Adventures, and Apocryphal Voyages” incorporates “Literature of the Red Atlantic,” based on the writings of non-Indigenous observers from Spain, France, England, and Germany. Although much of this information has been printed elsewhere, Weaver utilizes the secondary literature and published primary accounts to construct a new synthesized narrative that connects these people through their interaction with the Atlantic World. Rather than viewing them in isolation, readers are pushed to consider these experiences in relation to one another. This approach highlights historical patterns of Indigenous mobility, activism, and engagement with societies outside the Americas, pushing scholars to incorporate this often overlooked component in their more focused research on colonial and Native-newcomer history.

The author’s focus on individuals is one of the most important interpretative strengths of this work. The inclusion of Indigenous biographies is an effective decolonizing methodology that counters other popular narratives focused almost exclusively on the experiences of non-Indigenous actors. In the discussion of soldiers and sailors in chapter two, Weaver introduces the WWI veteran Francis Pegahmagabow. Although important details are included about this highly decorated soldier, such as his family, upbringing and time on the battlefield, it is Pegahmagabow’s activism after the war that concludes this section — reflecting on the wider trend of Indigenous political activism in the post-war era. More familiar personalities are also highlighted such as the diplomat Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), the Powhatan princess Pocahontas, and the entertainer/poet Emily Pauline Johnson. By situating these historic individuals within an Atlantic context, Weaver also debunks the common notion that it was only Europeans that traveled across the Atlantic. In this way, and much like previous work on the “Black Atlantic,” the Atlantic World becomes a multicultural, inter-continental experience.

According to Weaver, the “Red Atlantic” is meant to encourage research and provide a point of departure for future projects. Certainly its vast scope facilitates inevitable “gaps” that may be drawn out with more in-depth exploration. For instance, although Weaver indicates that the book spans the years 1000–1927, early contact zones between Vikings and Indigenous peoples (most notably the Beothuk) receive only a page worth of attention (pp. 36–37). The narrative then continues in the fifteenth century with Inuit captives taken to Scandinavia — thus leaving outstanding questions as to the experiences of Indigenous people and the Atlantic between those years. Were there other encounters in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? If written records hold little information, can we access more accounts from the oral traditions...