The Bringing of Wonder : Trade and the Indians of the Southeast, 1700-1783 Hardback
by Michael Morris
Part of the Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies series
Hardback
Description
In the relations between colonial European traders and the Indians of the southern backcountry, trade was a powerful manipulative tool used by both sides in their attempts to control each other.
This anthropological and sociological study examines how European traders sought out native women as cultural instructors, translators, and sexual companions.
The network of native women, fur traders, and colonial diplomats functioned as an invisible social, political, and economic web throughout the backcountry.
Although this web was an integral part of the colonial struggle for the region, it is often overlooked or ignored in conventional histories. Women played a key role in this system of economic exchange.
They benefitted materially from this arrangement, while the traders enjoyed increased political power as a result of the cohabitation.
These Anglo-Indian unions helped to impose Euroamerican values on native societies, and, in part, the women functioned as unofficial diplomats for their people.
Colonial governments hoped that the efforts of these frontier traders would impose stability on the tribes, but the profit-seeking of many such traders often resulted in bloody conflict instead.
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:176 pages
- Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication Date:30/04/1999
- Category:
- ISBN:9780313308437
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:176 pages
- Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication Date:30/04/1999
- Category:
- ISBN:9780313308437