Description
Book SynopsisSweet argues that the coming together of different peoples in early Rhode Island profoundly shaped the character of colonial New England, the meanings of the Revolution in the North and the making of American democracy. The area is held as an example of early American diversity and opportunism.
Trade ReviewSuperb... A useful addition to the literature about people of color in [New England]... The major strength of Bodies Politic is that it is based on extensive archival research and a wide reading of secondary literature on Africans and Native Americans. It also presents a significant challenge to hegemonic interpretations that are finally beginning to be addressed by colonial historians... Sweet's yeomanlike work should find a receptive audience among historians, graduate students, and intellectually sophisticated members of the reading public. -- Vernon J. Williams, Jr. History: Reviews of New Books 2004 This superb study explores the origins of that ironic definition of democracy as 'universal freedom and racial inequality'... Sophisticated and engaging... Highly recommended. Choice 2004 A fascinating picture of the interactions between English settlers, African slaves, and Native Americans in New England during the colonial era and early Republic. -- Catherine Molineux Common-Place 2004 It is difficult to imagine that anyone interested in the ways race was produced and articulated in early America and woven into every fiber of the national fabric would not depend upon and be grateful for Sweet's work. -- Rebecca Blevins Faery New England Quarterly An ambitious and persuasive account of the ways that the political inclusion of some groups and not others connected the colonial era through the Revolution to the early American republic. -- Serena Zabin Journal of American History 2005 At once detailed and sweeping, social and political, archival and synthetic... This book is the best application yet to early American history of postcolonial theory. -- Bruce Dain American Historical Review 2005 Sweet's brilliant micro-history of the tangled web of race relations in the North dynamically juxtaposes Native American, African American and Anglo-American experiences through a series of case studies. -- Alan Rice Journal of American Studies Sweet's regional history points us away from northern exceptionalism and toward a more honest appraisal of colonialism and its legacies as a national phenomenon... Bodies Politic truly is the best 'multicultural' history of early New England yet to appear not least because of Sweet's refusal to equate race and culture. -- David Waldstreicher Reviews in American History 2004 He emphasizes that the public was never simply Euro-American, and that categories for, and uses of, racial identity emerged out of complicated socio-cultural negotiations and changed with time and personal background. Bodies Politic is remarkably successful in grounding these assertions in detailed, well-told reconstructions of individual lives and community events. -- Joshua Piker History Compass Sweet offers scholars a capacious history of race in the North and a primer for thinking about the relationship between 'cultures' and identities... Bodies Politic is deeply researched and richly detailed. -- Catherine Kelly William and Mary Quarterly 2005 Superb... A useful addition to the literature about people of color in [New England]... The major strength of Bodies Politic is that it is based on extensive archival research and a wide reading of secondary literature on Africans and Native Americans. History: Reviews of New Books
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: After Origins
Part I: Coming Together
Chapter 1. Common Ground
Chapter 2. Negotiating Slavery
Chapter 3. Strange Christians
Part II: Living Together
Chapter 4. Strange Flesh
Chapter 5. Men of Arms
Chapter 6. Negotiating Freedom
Part III: Moving Apart
Chapter 7. Conceiving Race
Chapter 8. Manifest Destinies
Chapter 9. Hard Scrabble
Epilogue: Democracy in America
Notes
A Note on Sources
Index
