Indians and English

How the colonists and the natives viewed each other through the lenses of their own cultures. Excellently done.

In Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America, Karen Ordahl Kupperman argues, “Early encounters provoked a complex and varied series of reactions, and these were recorded in a mountain of sources, which tell the careful reader much about the reactions of everyone involved in these confrontations” (pg. 1). She writes, “English who actually spent time with Americans and tried to understand what American associates told them about their history, religious beliefs, and cultural practices exhibited a range of responses – within a single brief book writers could be contemptuous and admiring, hostile and friendly, self-confident and terrified – and it is the scope and complexity of these reactions that this book seeks to show more elucidate” (pg. x). She further writes of these writings, “This literature, regardless of its source, shares several characteristics: it sought to tell people at home about America and why it was important for England to be involved there; and it tried desperately to make readers in England understand how difficult it was to establish thriving settlements. The American natives were central to both themes” (pg. 3). Kupperman cautions, “It is important to realize that, just as the Americans and their culture are remote and foreign to us, so the English are as well. It is a mistake to think that we can easily and directly understand the minds of English actors” (pg. 11). Further, “The Indian experience of colonialism was in many ways the mirror image of the English. Strong native leaders, looking at the pathetic early plantations, understood that the English were utterly dependent and therefore controllable” (pg. 13). She concludes, “As recent work on the postcolonial world has reminded us, all documents of colonialism are the result of dialogue, and the voice of the colonized is always there, shaping and focusing the statement despite the writers’ own determination to control the story” (pg. 15). show less