Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790 by Jean M. OBrien


Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790
Title : Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0803286198
ISBN-10 : 9780803286191
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 224
Publication : First published February 28, 1997

Despite popular belief, Native peoples did not simply disappear from colonial New England as the English extended their domination in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rather, the Native peoples in such places as Natick, Massachusetts, creatively resisted colonialism, defended their lands, and rebuilt kin networks and community through the strategic use of English cultural practices and institutions. So why did New England settlers believe that the Native peoples had vanished? In this thoroughly researched and astutely argued study, historian Jean M. O’Brien reveals that, in the late eighteenth century, the Natick tribe experienced a process of “dispossession by degrees,” which rendered them invisible within the larger context of the colonial social order, thus enabling the construction of the myth of Indian extinction.

Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790 Reviews

  • Richard Subber

    Dispossession by Degrees is a carefully researched and compellingly argued account of the persistent efforts of North American Indians to maintain their cultures and lifestyles as Europeans invaded the continent and commenced the process of domination and displacement.
    O’Brien puts the spotlight on Natick, established in 1651 as the first “Indian Praying Town” in New England.
    The author carefully and competently explains and documents a fundamental point of conflict: the Indians thought in terms of the optimal use of land that sustained their communities, and the Europeans thought in terms of ownership of the land for personal survival and profit.
    A sidelight: typically the word “natick” is perceived as a version of Algonquian word(s) meaning “place of hills.” O’Brien cites a 17th century English colonist/linguist who wrote that in one of the Algonquian family of languages—Narragansett—the word “nittauke” means “my land.” The colonists didn’t see it that way.
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    www.richardsubber.com