This absorbing book is the first ever to focus on the traffic in Indian slaves during the early years of the American South. The Indian slave trade was of central importance from the Carolina coast to the Mississippi Valley for nearly fifty years, linking southern lives and creating a whirlwind of violence and profit-making, argues Alan Gallay. He documents in vivid detail how the trade operated, the processes by which Europeans and Native Americans became participa… More >>
The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717
I’m not sure what to say about this book. It just flows so smoothly that, while I don’t consider the topic wholly engaging, I’m having as easy a time with it as if it was a gripping novel. Even reading this as an assignment, it’s not a burden at all. Gallay is such a masterful author, and the book is so accessible, that you move seamlessly along as if the words were your own thoughts. I really have no higher praise for its quality than that.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a great book! I always really enjoyed Professor Gallay’s classes at Western and I really enjoyed this interesting book!
Rating: 5 / 5
The book was in wonderful condition and arrived promptly, I could not have asked for a better or more efficent experience.
Rating: 5 / 5
Focusing on the early decades of South Carolina, Alan Gallay places English colonization in the context of the French and Spanish presence in North America, and of the immensely disrupted “first nation” cultures struggling to recreate stability in the face of European intrusions. Since the book won the 2003 Bancroft Prize, it shouldn’t be necessary to praise it excessively or to call it to the attention of serious students of American history. For more casual readers, let me flag a few surprises:
* First, the mere idea of Indian slaves! Yes, the colonists enslaved Indians more often than they converted them to Christianity, and lured the young men of some tribes into warfare aginst other tribes for the purpose of capturing slaves to sell to the English.
* South Carolina exported more slaves in its first fifty years than it imported, most of them captured Indians sent to New England, the Bahamas, and other English sugar islands which were already more populous and more economically important than the mainland.
* The rapid expansion of cultural mayhem from the spottily settled English colonies to the whole of North America east of the Mississippi.
* The culture of slavery and the perception of racial identities that so quickly emerged in the American South! Was the Civil War inevitable from the onset?
* The immediate emergence of conflict between the interest groups of the English, that is, the proprieters vs. the settlers, the local authorities of government vs. the ungovernable colonists, the rivalry between colonies, etc.
* The challenge to the dominant historical hypothesis that Virginia was the model and seedbed of later Southern colonies and states; Prof. Gallay suggests that South Carolina may have disseminated its values and habits rather more widely than many have supposed.
Some readers may find this book overly detailed and laborsome. Fair warning, okay? But those who are seriously interested in American history, of any era, should be advised that “The Indian Slave Trade” is required reading.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have been doing research on the Indian slave trade and this book is a gem! It explains the political and social climate so to explain the “whys” of something that is difficult for 21st century minds to comprehend.
Rating: 5 / 5