Description
Book SynopsisSeneca Possessed explores how the Seneca people and their homeland were "possessed"-culturally, spiritually, materially, and legally-in the wake of the American Revolution.
Trade Review"In this lucid and fascinating book . . . Dennis provides an important new interpretation of how the Senecas adapted, and what those adaptations tell us about their history and the history of the early American Republic. . . . Dennis's book is a distinctive blend of the familiar and the new, allowing us to see old questions in a different light and opening new paths for exploration." *
Western Historical Quarterly *
"Dennis weaves seemingly disparate threads of Seneca social, cultural, political, and economic history into a unique and convincing interpretation of a crucial era of transition in Seneca peoples' collective past. Based on deep research in archival sources housed primarily in Pennsylvania and New York, Dennis's monograph represents an important contribution not only to the historiography of Iroquois people but also to that of the early American republic." *
The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography *
"An important book. It significantly revises our understanding of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) history in the Early Republic, sheds new light on the turmoil that afflicted native communities in western New York in the decades following the American Revolution, and allows us to examine in close compass the complexities of culture change generally." * Michael Oberg, author of
Uncas: First of the Mohegans *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
PART I. DOMINION
1. Colonial Crucible and Post-Revolutionary Predicament
PART II. SPIRIT
2. Handsome Lake and the Seneca Great Awakening: Revelation and Transformation
3. Patriarchy and the Witch-Hunting of Handsome Lake
PART III. MASTERY
4. Friendly Mission: The Holy Conversation of Quakers and Senecas
5. From Longhouse to Farmhouse: Quakers and the Transformation of Seneca Rural Life
6. Seneca Repossessed, 1818-1826
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
