Description
Book SynopsisOn July 28, 1797, an elderly Lenape woman stood before the newly appointed almsman of Pennsylvania's Chester County and delivered a brief account of her life. In a sad irony, Hannah Freeman was establishing her residency - a claim that paved the way for her removal to the poorhouse.
A Lenape among the Quakers reconstructs Freeman's history.
Trade Review“Clear and compelling. . . . Through the life of Hannah Freeman, Marsh places the mythology of Penn’s peaceable kingdom in stark relief.”—Jean R. Soderlund,
Western Historical Quarterly"A thoughtful documentation of one woman's struggle to maintain her ancestral homeland."—
Booklist“In a genre that so often focuses on the lives of politically significant ‘great men’ (and occasionally women), we rarely learn of the lives of the marginalized, but this is exactly what historian Dawn G. Marsh has attempted.
A Lenape among the Quakers is a scathing indictment of the hypocrisy of Quakers’ professions of peace while engaged in a land grab.”—Michelle LeMaster,
Ethnohistory “Engagingly written—and impassioned as Marsh clearly chastises Hannah Freeman’s Quaker neighbors for their hypocrisy in promoting friendly relations with indigenous neighbors and landowners, while facilitating their dispossession.”—Gunlog Fur,
Journal of the Early Republic “With great insight and sensitivity, Dawn Marsh has pieced together Hannah Freeman’s story. All who have ever wondered what happened to Pennsylvania’s Native people should read this book.”—Nancy Shoemaker, author of A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America
“Using the closely examined life of a single eighteenth-century Native American woman, Dawn Marsh convincingly challenges Pennsylvania’s claim to a more just and humane treatment of its indigenous peoples, persuasively contending that Native Americans adopted complex strategies to preserve their cultural heritage, and explores the significance of the continuing mythology of ‘Indian Hannah’ Freeman—all in a good read.”—Melton McLaurin, author of
Celia, A Slave“Marsh makes commendable use of the scant documentary evidence to piece together Hannah Freeman’s life. Her painstaking efforts to give Hannah a voice are impressive.” Thomas Britten,
The Historian Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Examination of Hannah Freeman
Chapter 2. All Our Grandmothers
Chapter 3. The Peaceable Kingdom
Chapter 4. Lenapehoking Lost
Chapter 5. Kindness Extended
Chapter 6. The Betrayal
Epilogue
Appendix 1. The Examination of Indian Hannah alias Hannah Freeman
Appendix 2. Kindness Extended
Notes
Bibliography
