{"product_id":"the-divided-ground-isbn-9781400077076","title":"The Divided Ground","description":"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eWilliam Cooper's Town\u003c\/i\u003e comes a dramatic and illuminating portrait of white and Native American relations in the aftermath of the American Revolution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Divided Ground\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of two friends, a Mohawk Indian and the son of a colonial clergyman, whose relationship helped redefine North America. As one served American expansion by promoting Indian dispossession and religious conversion, and the other struggled to defend and strengthen Indian territories, the two friends became bitter enemies.   Their battle over control of the Indian borderland, that divided ground between the British Empire and the nascent United States, would come to define nationhood in North America.  Taylor tells a fascinating story of the far-reaching effects of the American Revolution and the struggle of American Indians to preserve a land of their own.“A superbly researched work of history... forces us to look anew at the American Revolution from a tragic –and necessary –perspective”—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e“Meticulously researched...by immersing us in its details Taylor makes us see the Iroquois as active shapers of American history, and their struggle to keep their homeland as part of our shared American past.”—\u003ci\u003eSan Diego Union-Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e“In this dramatic, precise account [Taylor] describes an American Revolution with dire consequences for native peoples. . . fascinating. . . .[A] stunningly alternative American Revolution.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e“Formidably researched, and display[s] a breathtaking intellectual understanding.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Denver Post\u003c\/i\u003eAlan Taylor received his B.A. from Colby College and his Ph.D. from Brandeis University. He has taught at Colby College, the College of William \u0026amp; Mary, Boston University, and the University of California at Davis, where he is Professor of History. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eLiberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820 (1990)\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eWilliam Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic (1996)\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAmerican Colonies: The Settlement of North America (The Penguin History of the United States, Vol. 1, 2001)\u003c\/i\u003e.Property\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In July 1761, as Joseph Brant traveled east to join Wheelock’s school,   Sir William Johnson headed west, ascending the Mohawk River into the   country of the Six Nations. his five boats hauled thirty-eight   soldiers, their equipment, and presents for the Indians. The traveling   party also included his nineteen-year-old son, John, and their cousin   and secretary, Guy Johnson. In high spirits, the Johnsons anticipated a   victory tour in Indian country to consolidate the recent British   conquest of French Canada. With the French banished from North America,   British officials expected easily to control the Indians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Instead, Johnson found pervasive Indian dread and disgust, even among   the nearby Mohawks, who had so long cooperated with him. As British   allies, the Mohawks had lost about 100 warriors, half of their men,   during the recent war with the French. In return for that heavy   sacrifice, the Mohawks expected Johnson to protect their villages   against conniving land speculators and encroaching settlers. Frustrated   in that expectation, the Mohawks complained bitterly to Johnson, who   reported that they felt in “danger of being made slaves, and having   their lands taken from them at pleasure, which they added would confirm   what the French have often told the Six Nations.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Preaching patience, Johnson promised justice to the Mohawks—but New   York’s leaders and settlers kept breaking his every promise. Fed up,   the Mohawks threatened to move away deeper within Indian country. That   possibility delighted settlers and speculators who lusted after Mohawk   land, but alarmed Johnson, who relied on his special Mohawk connection   to influence the Six Nations. Without nearby and content Mohawks as   allies, his superintendency would become impotent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Proceeding upriver beyond the Mohawk country, Johnson reached German   Flats, colonial New York’s westernmost settlement. There, Johnson met   Oneidas, who also bitterly complained of encroaching settlers. The   chief Conoghquieson warned Johnson that the Oneida settlers would fight   rather than lose their lands. Instead of consolidating British power   over the Indians, the conquest of Canada threatened to unravel the   alliance with the Six Nations that was essential to frontier security.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In helping the British to attack Canada, the Iroquois had   miscalculated, for they had never expected such a rapid and complete   collapse by the French forces. No longer could the Indians play off the   French against the British to maintain Iroquois independence, to   maximize their presents, and to ensure trade competition. A British   general explained, “They saw us sole Masters of the Country, the   Balance of Power broke, and their own Consequence at an End. Instead of   being courted by two Nations, a Profusion of Presents made by both, and   two Markets to trade at, they now depend upon one Power.” That   dependence exposed Iroquoia to land-hungry colonists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    THE SIX NATIONS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Iroquois pursued a mixed subsistence strategy combining   horticulture, gathering, fishing, and hunting. In fields of fertile,   alluvial soil, they cultivated mounds of maize topped by climbing beans   and surrounded by low-lying squashes and pumpkins. After the fall   harvest, the natives dispersed into the hills, occupying many small   camps, tended by women, while the men pursued bear, deer, and beaver   for meat and pelts. Returning to their villages, they spent the early   spring collecting maple sap to make a brown sugar. After planting their   crops in May, the Iroquois spent June and July in fishing camps strung   along the lakes and streams. Having exhausted the previous year’s   harvest, the people sought relief by catching eels, salmon, trout, and   whitefish. During that hungry season, the women and children also   gathered wild onions, followed by strawberries, raspberries,   whortleberries, and blackberries. From the forest floor, they also   harvested ginseng for sale to colonial merchants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This mobile, but seasonally patterned, way of life conserved most of   the forest and streams—and their wild things—over the generations.   Native use contrasted with the colonists’ drive to clear most of the   forest to provide pastures for cattle and fields for grain. Compared to   the colonists, the Iroquois used land extensively rather than   intensively. The natives did clear and cultivate compact fields near   their villages, but they kept most of their domain as a forest to   sustain wild plants and animals. To colonial eyes, the Iroquois peoples   wasted their land by keeping a wilderness; but the Indians exploited   their domain in ways that the colonists did not understand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Most colonists disdained the Iroquois as improvident, living from hand   to mouth for want of incentives for accumulating private property.   Indeed, the Iroquois considered it foolish and demeaning to labor   beyond what they needed to subsist. Sir William noted, “The Indians are   a Lazy people, \u0026amp; naturally Enemies to Labour.” But colonial charges of   Indian indolence focused on men seen during the warm months in their   villages or on visits to colonial towns: periods and places of male   inactivity and heavy drinking. Colonial observers rarely saw Indian men   during their strenuous winter hunts, when they endured severe hardships   pursuing game for miles over rugged terrain in bitter weather. The   colonial view also discounted the evident industry of native women in   cultivating and gathering, which the colonists treated as exploitation   by lazy husbands and fathers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    John Heckewelder, a missionary, noted that the Indians disliked the   competitive and acquisitive values of the colonists: “They wonder that   the white people are striving so much to get rich, and to heap up   treasures in this world which they cannot carry with them to the next.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They cherished the collective security maintained by expecting   generosity from the fortunate to the needy. Instead of storing up   wealth, prospering chiefs accumulated prestige by gifts to their kin   and to the hungry and ragged. These values of hospitality and   reciprocity spread resources through the seasons and across a village,   sustaining a rough equality. No one starved in an Iroquois village   unless all did so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If paltry by colonial standards, the material wants of the Iroquois   exceeded those of their ancestors. The eighteenth-century Iroquois   relied upon traders to provide European manufactured goods that   exceeded the Indian technology to make. In return for furs, the   Iroquois procured metal knives, hatchets, axes, hoes, and kettles—all   vastly better than their stone and wood predecessors. And with cloth,   mirrors, glass and silver jewelry, and alcohol, the traders provided   new luxuries to the Indians. Above all, they needed guns, gunpowder,   and metal shot for hunting and war. Dependence on that imported   technology also entailed an Indian reliance on colonial blacksmiths and   gunsmiths to repair metal tools and weapons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In personal appearance, the Iroquois conveyed a mix of tradition and   adaptation, of America and Europe, of subsistence and commerce, and of   ease and pride. Except for moccasins on their feet, the Iroquois donned   more British cloth than traditional buckskin. In warm weather, men wore   little more than a loose, linen shirt over their shoulders and a   loincloth held by a leather belt. Women’s attire consisted of a linen   shirt and a cotton petticoat. In colder weather, both men and women   wrapped themselves in woolen blankets, while men covered their lower   limbs with leather leggings. Both genders delighted in abundant   jewelry, especially silver worn as bracelets, gorgets, rings, and   earrings. Women and older men wore their hair long, but warriors shaved   the sides of their head to leave a scalp lock on top. The young men   also plucked their facial hair out by the roots.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Gender and age, rather than social class, structured Iroquois labor.   Assisted by children, women tended the crops and gathered the wild   plants, while men fished, hunted, waged war, and conducted diplomacy.   Men’s activities took them deep into the forest and far from the   villages. Consequently, those villages and their fields belonged to the   women, the enduring people of the community. They controlled the   harvest and determined the location of their village.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No land could be forsaken without their consent. In 1763, the Mohawks   explained to Johnson that women were “the Truest Owners, being the   persons who labour on the Lands.” The Mohawk matrons then assured   Johnson that “they would keep their Land, and did not chuse to part   with the same to be reduced to make Brooms.” The Mohawks well knew the   Algonquian Indians of the Hudson Valley and New England as negative   reference points: as native peoples who had lost most of their lands   and become the impoverished makers of brooms and baskets for colonial   consumers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Chiefs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Iroquois dispersed and divided political power from a dread of   coercion. They understood the world as constantly embroiled in a   struggle between the forces of good and evil, of life and death, of   peace and war. Because those conflicts raged within every nation,   village, and person, all forms of power had to be dispersed and closely   watched to preserve the freedom of a people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    An Iroquois nation was an ethnic and linguistic group divided into   several jealous villages and subdivided by internal factions led by   rival chiefs. Although one village usually was a bit larger and more   prestigious, hosting the council fire of the nation, the chiefs there   could only admonish and advise, but never command, their fellow people   in other, smaller villages. No nation was united under the rule of a   single headman, although one chief might enjoy more honor as the keeper   of sacred objects—principally wampum belts—and as the host of public   councils. Instead of representing an entire village (much less the   collective nation), a chief represented a particular clan, which the   Iroquois called “a tribe.” Most Iroquois nations had three clans (or   tribes): Bear, Wolf, and Turtle. A clan consisted of several extended   families, related through the maternal line: matrilineages. Johnson   noted that a chief’s clout depended on “the number of Warriors under   his influence, which are seldom more than his own relations.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The proper chief had been accomplished in war but mellowed by time,   becoming eloquent, patient, tactful, dignified, and methodical. The   duty of a chief was to keep his head while others were losing theirs.   In 1765, Sayenqueraghta, a Seneca, described the ideal chief as “a   wise, dispassionate man [who] thinks much \u0026amp; thinks slowly, with great   caution \u0026amp; deliberation, before he speaks his whole mind.” A proper   chief worked to soothe the discontented, to calm troubles, and to keep   the peace by sage advice. Unable to command people, the chief exercised   influence through persuasion, which rested upon his prestige, example,   and reason. A bullying chief risked his life to assassination by   disgruntled warriors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The clan chiefs (or “sachems”) had to share village authority with   warriors and matrons. The senior women of the matrilineages chose the   chiefs who represented their clan on the village council. Although   birth within the proper matrilineage mattered, the clan mothers favored   merit and personality in determining their choice. In effect, chiefs   were so many male ambassadors, representing matrilineages. Once chosen,   a chief ordinarily served for life, but an incompetent could be ousted   by the matrons of his clan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Chiefs promoted harmony and peace, but they could not always   succeed—especially beyond the nation among outsiders without kinship   ties to the Iroquois. Consequently, the people also needed to summon   the darker powers of their young warriors. They could not, and should   not, possess the chiefly virtues of calm forbearance. Instead, warriors   needed to be decisive, violent, cruel, and proud—quick to take offense   and terrible in seeking vengeance. Without formidable warriors, no   people could remain free. In theory, chiefs restrained warriors, but   ambitious young men longed for the honors of war to demonstrate their   courage and prowess. Bristling under restraint by their chiefs,   warriors sometimes forced a war by raiding foes or by killing their   emissaries. But women could compel the warriors to make peace by   withholding the food needed for long-distance raids.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Within their villages, the Iroquois dreaded contention and coercion,   preferring the deliberative search for consensus, however elusive. That   search led to highly formalized speeches in public council by chiefs   closely watched by all the villagers. If those deliberations failed to   reach an acceptable consensus, the people agreed to disagree,   permitting factions and families to chart varying courses. For example,   during the imperial wars, the Oneidas disagreed on a common front, so   some helped the French and others the British, while most clung to   neutrality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If a village majority did commit to a provocative decision, the   disgruntled voted with their feet by moving away. Over the years,   village populations ebbed and surged as some people moved out and   others moved in. Driven by the elusive ideal of consensus, this fission   helped to sustain that ideal—if not the reality—by temporarily ridding   villages of the most discontented.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The lack of coercive power within the Six Nations frustrated colonial   officials who hoped to command the Indians by co-opting their chiefs.   Early and often, those chiefs tried to explain their limited influence   over hotheaded warriors or over another village. Indeed, a chief lost   influence if he did colonial bidding by coercing his own people.   Johnson eventually gave up trying to mandate head chiefs for each of   the Six Nations, explaining that “the extreme jealousy which the   Northern Indians entertain of one another would render a particular   choice of any one of them unserviceable; and make his Nation pay no   regard to him.” Noting that chiefs had greater power in the past, or at   a distance from the settlements, Johnson concluded that colonial   meddling had weakened authority in Indian villages. But, of course,   Johnson was the consummate meddler.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The imperial wars diminished the authority of the sachems. Eager to   recruit warriors, colonial leaders treated the war chiefs as the real   locus of power in an Iroquois village. Consequently, they could drive   hard bargains to secure abundant presents including weapons and   ammunition. By redistributing this largesse to their followers, war   chiefs built their influence at the expense of the sachems. Indeed,   warriors and their war chiefs waxed increasingly arrogant. In 1762, the   Seneca war chiefs assured Johnson: “We are in fact the People of   Consequence for Managing Affairs, Our Sachems being generally a parcell   of Old People who say Much, but who Mean or Act very little.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     From a colonial perspective, the Iroquois lived in virtual   anarchy—owing to the crisscrossing interests of chiefs, warriors, and   women; the elusive ideal of consensus; and the powerful animus against   coercion. And yet, native villages were remarkably harmonious—except   when alcohol abounded. Heckewelder noted, “They have no written laws,   but they have usages founded on the most strict principles of equity   and justice. . . . They are peaceable, sociable, obliging, charitable,   and hospitable among themselves.” Their public councils were   dignified—in stark contrast to the rancor of colonial politics. Johnson   marveled, “All their deliberations are conducted with extraordinary   regularity and decorum. They never interrupt him who is speaking, nor   use harsh language, whatever may be their thoughts.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Kinship and conversation framed the obligations, duties, and norms of   an Indian village. Authority ultimately lay in the constant flow of   talk, which regulated reputation through the variations of praise and   ridicule, celebration and shaming. The close quarters of Indian   villages kept few secrets and enforced moral norms by rendering   individuals hypersensitive to their standing in the eyes of kin and   neighbors. Humiliated and shunned, a thief or rapist could not endure   in an observant, gossiping village. Consequently, theft and rape were   virtually unknown among the Iroquois.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300266365157,"sku":"NP9781400077076","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400077076.jpg?v=1767739041","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-divided-ground-isbn-9781400077076","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}