The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade: The Three Thought Worlds of the Iroquois and the Huron, 1609-1650 [Paperback]

Roger M. Carpenter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 087013728X | ISBN-13: 978-0870137280 | Publication Date: November 30, 2004

For three decades, Native American history has been dominated by two major themes. The first is "The Cant of Conquest," the notion that all native peoples who came into contact with Europeans suffered devastating effects due to disease, alcohol, and warfare. However, the argument can be made that in some cases native peoples controlled their own fortunes, at least for awhile. The other dominant theme is the "The Contest of Cultures," the idea that Native American history needs to be examined in the context of dealings with Europeans. Europeans changed the Americas, but this approach concerns colonialism and colonists as well as Native Americans. 
      The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade examines the changing worldviews of the Huron and the Iroquois in the first half of the seventeenth century, during a period of increasing European contact. From Samuel de Champlain’s armed encounter with the Iroquois, in 1609, to the dispersal of the Huron in the mid-seventeenth century, Carpenter’s book traces the evolving thought worlds of Iroquoian peoples.  
      The Iroquois and the Huron-peoples with an intertwined history and many cultural similarities-reacted differently to European contact. The Huron thought world began to change when the French initiated intense trade and missionary activity early in the seventeenth century. French missionary efforts resulted in a split within the Huron nation between traditionalists and Christian converts. By contrast, the Iroquois were interested primarily in trade with the newcomers. The Iroquois, like the Huron, accepted European trade goods, but unlike the Huron, they rejected European religion.  
      The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade differs from other works of Native American history on several counts. Native American historiography has not been overly comparative. This work is a comparative history of two culturally similar Native American nations. It also differs in that, rather than another history of Native-European contacts, it is an Indian-centered history. 
 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roger M. Carpenter is a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College. His research is focused on the native peoples of the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and the eastern plains, and their reactions to contact with Europeans.

Product Details

• Paperback: 179 pages
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press (November 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087013728X
• ISBN-13: 978-0870137280
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,125,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars changes in Native American worldviews, March 28, 2005

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Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade: The Three Thought Worlds of the Iroquois and the Huron, 1609-1650 (Paperback)

Carpenter follows the various ways the Hurons and Iroquois tribes adapted to the activities and growing power, and in some cases the example, of the French and English in northeastern America and southern Canada in the early period of contact between them. Carpenter gets behind the devastating effects of alcohol, disease, warfare, and displacement to disclose and understand how these tribes tried to make sense of and adjust to these by modifications of their mythologies and related cultural factors. For instance, when the Indians became involved in fur trading, they "had to transform the beaver from a creature they accorded a measure of respect" because of its place in their myths and lore into a commodity. Similarly, the author goes into how Christianity affected the Indians' outlook when they did not convert outright to this religion spread by French Jesuits. The coming of the Europeans also changed the Indians' manner of warfare, from mostly skirmishes with little loss of life to an form of total war where villages were destroyed and their inhabitants taken into captivity. Carpenter is an assistant professor of history at Canada's U. of Saskatchewan whose work sheds light on the impact of Europeans on the minds and behavior of Native American tribes. Most of the scholarship in this area has looked to the external consequences such as drunkenness or migration; whereas Carpenter's gets to the changes in the fundamentals of the Native American's culture.