Customer Reviews

Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750-1830 (Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American Hist)

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Contact Points provides an excellent collection of essays from top ethno historians including James Axtell, Jane Merritt, Claudio Saunt, and many more. There topics cover a wide range of years and areas all over the eastern seaboard and out into Missouri and the Great Lakes. The general idea of the book is to examine the "frontier" that has been defined in a variety of ways throughout this scholarship. In this case the frontier is defined as a nebulous area where two or more cultures come together. The original frontier thesis proposed by Frederick Jackson turner is in need of revision and this book seeks to offer an explanation. While no one book provides the answer this one does show a reasonable account for defining that frontier. There are strong and weak essays in this book and some don't follow the theme of the frontier as closely as they could but overall it is an excellent survey. This combines many of the top minds on various tribes and explores how the Native Americans and euroamerican interacted in the colonial and postcolonial world.

Some of the topics included
A look at the Delaware, Iroquois and Moravian interactions at Shamokin
A look at the Delaware interactions with the Proprietors and Quakers in Bethlehem.
The changing role of women in Creek society
The role race played in interactions between slaves, whites and Indians
How memory is affected by the events of the colonial era

and many more.

Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis, now over a century old, continues to spark debate on the concept of frontier to America, particularly in Early America. The editors of this compilation point out that the contributors to the volume are challenging Turner's view as too narrow in scope; instead, desiring to expand what constitutes "frontier," based on numerous issues such as conflict, race and environment. The essayists in this volume attempt to expand the, "...fundamentally flawed [thesis] in its ethnocentrism, triumphalism, gender bias, and linearity," that Turner presented in his paper. "Revisionist" history, by the editors own admission, seeking to expand the concept of "frontier" by exploring what the term meant to different groups.

The very first question raised came on the very first page of the essay when the editors of this work discuss the use of the term "frontier." They argue that the term "frontier" became significant only after the American Revolution. Prior to the revolution, "backcountry" was used most often and that the concepts changed in the change in terminology. This made me wonder, is it true that the concept changed at this point, or it is merely a change of terminology while the concept is largely the same for both terms?

Another point that I questioned is found a few pages later. The editors wrote, "Elites extended their control into border areas by relying on the labor of lower-status whites to occupy, defend, and clear the land." I believe, goes against the greater part of the historiography written about frontier settlers. As Edmund Morgan pointed out in The Birth of the Republic: 1763-89 (3rd Ed.), the colonists were always distrustful of government intervention, which is one of the root causes of the American Revolution. Gary Nash, in his latest work, The Unknown Revolution, gave numerous illustrations on how those on the frontier resisted government interference, in a myriad of different forms, for a myriad of different reasons. Thus, I find myself wondering if the elites so in control on the frontier or if, as is the general trend, those on the frontier wanted to be left alone and fought against intervention by elites.

Onto the actual essays. The essayists contained within tackle the concept of "frontier" from different perspectives, including cultural and social history, political and diplomatic history, linguistic theory, and women's history. All of the essayists tackle primary source extensively to get to the root nature of perceptions and relationships between Native Americans and Colonists. Some essays are better than others. James H. Merrell's essay, "Shamokin, "the very seat of the Prince of Darkness": Unsettling the Early American Frontier, stands out as one of the better essays, with William B. Hart, "Black `Go-Betweens' and the Mutability of `Race' Status, and Identity on New York's Pre-Revolutionary Frontier" being the weakest of the volume. Why?

Well, Merrell points out all the differing cultures that could meet up in a given locale and shows how the clash of those many cultures could affect the perspective of those living in that region. It could be, to say the least, a very disconcerting experience. In Hart's essay, I find myself in slight disagreement with the author on the statement, "Grant's inability to find `genuine Indians' at Johnson Hall indicates that she perceived the world in racial terms." (94) I find myself in slight disagreement because I wonder if she did not perceive the world in cultural terms. She went to see "genuine Indians," who, she imagined, would be dressed up in traditional native garb. She found them dressed much like her host, Sir William Johnson. It is my belief that she wanted to see the culture, not the race of the Indians. As the race of the Indians could not disappear because of the color of their skin, their clothing could change. In Grant's mind - the clothing was the identity of the natives, thus the reason Grant was disappointed.

Cayton's own essay within the book is one where he is imposing his own modern political viewspoints onto the Treaty of Grenville and the early leaders of America. From his wording, he makes the government of our early nation seem sinister and aristocratic, almost seemingly to operate without the consent of the governend, so red flags in his essay resound.

So, the three star rating does represent the overall presentations contained within the book. Some are good, others, weak. However, you should get a great deal out of this book if you have a basis understanding into Early American history.