Tribe, Race, history: Native Americans in Southern New England, 1780-1880 (review)

The century between the American Revolution and Reconstruction marked a fascinating period in the development of southern New England's regional identity. Historians have studied this era from a variety of perspectives, and in Tribe, Race, History, Daniel Mandell elects to do so from the perspective of southern New England's Native American communities as they influenced—and are influenced by—regional developments. Mandell expands on the theme of Native American survival and adaptation he established in Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth Century Massachusetts [1996].

In Behind the Frontier, Mandell explores the history of Massachusetts' Native American communities, starting with King Phillip's War and ending in 1775. Tribe, Race, History picks up where Behind the Frontier left off and concludes with the end of Reconstruction in 1880. It is also a more ambitious effort, enlarging the scope of Mandell's study from a single state to all of southern new England. Both books emphasize that Native American communities worked hard to ensure their cultural—as well as physical—survival through a combination of resistance and adaptation to new England society even as they were surrounded by Anglo-American neighbors who often sought to appropriate Indian land and labor.

The need to examine native American perspectives of this time period is illustrated by Mandell's contention that these communities not only continued to exist after their military defeats but also became an integral part of New England's history. Although many of the region's Indian peoples existed on the margins of New England society, they nonetheless contributed to that society in a variety of ways. They worked as whalers, servants, craftspeople, and laborers, struggled to define their political identities within the United States with the question of citizenship, and helped define the boundaries of race, class, and ethnicity in New England.

The negotiation, definition, and crossing of boundaries between native American communities and other groups in New England are an important theme in Mandell's work. Indians often had to defend the physical boundaries of their land against the encroachments of their Anglo-American neighbors, but less tangible boundaries were equally important, and crossing them was both essential and dangerous. Indians crossed or shifted boundaries to find marriage partners, introduce reforms, or seek work, but they could not always control the events that resulted. For example, many Native Americans crossed racial boundaries through marriage to white or black spouses, and then found themselves forced to reaffirm those boundaries when Anglo-Americans insisted that the lack of "pure-blooded" Indians meant that Indians should lose their equal cultural identity altogether.

Because the lives and actions of southern New England's Native American communities were inextricably woven throughout the fabric of the region's history, it is impossible to fully understand the history of New England without them. And as they influenced new England's history, so too were they affected by the developments taking place in the region between 1780 and 1880. In the chapter "Reality and Imagery," Mandell demonstrates how the image of the "vanishing Indian" played an important role in shaping Anglo-Americans' understanding of their region's history. He argues that this image became popular as the Anglo-American concept of race was redefined in ways that ultimately had a negative impact on Native American' efforts to retain their cultural identity. But the effects of regional developments were not always negative, as Mandell asserts that an increased in Indian peoples' demands for autonomy, such as the Mashpee Revolt, were inspired by a widespread enthusiasm for democracy following the American Revolution.

Tribe, Race, History is an ambitious book and that ambition is both its strength and a weakness. In his efforts to illuminate the important part that Native American communities played in the history of southern new England, Mandell introduces numerous themes, including race, class, ethnicity, politics, religion, and identity. The book's six chapters apply those themes to two dozen communities scattered...