Neal Salisbury

A companion to American Indian history

List of Contributors.Introduction.1 Historiography.Philip J. Deloria (University of Colorado).2 First Contacts.John Kicza (Washington State University).3 Health, Disease, Demography.Russell Thornton (University of California, Los Angeles).4 Wag the Imperial Dog: Indians and Overseas Empires in North America, 1650-1776.Gregory E. Dowd (University of Notre Dame).5 Native Americans and the United States, Canada, and Mexico.R. David Edmunds (Indiana University).6 Languages: Linguistic Change and the Study of Indian Languages from Colonial Times to the Present.Regna Darnell (University of Western Ontario).7 Native American Systems of Knowledge.Clara Sue Kidwell (University of Oklahoma).8 Native American Spirituality: History, Theory, and Reformulation.Lee Irwin (College of Charleston).9 Indians and Christianity.Willard Rollins (University of Nevada, Las Vegas).10 Kinship, Family Kindreds, and Community.Jay Miller (Simon Fraser University).11 The Nature of Conquest: Indians, Americans, and Environmental History.Louis Warren (University of California, Davis).12 Labor and Exchange in American Indian History.Patricia Albers (University of Minnesota).13 American Indian Warfare: The Cycles of Conflict and the Militarization of Native North America.Tom Holm (University of Arizona).14 Indian Law, Sovereignty, and State Law: Native People and the Law.Sidney L. Harring (City University of New York Law School).15 Federal and State Policies and American Indians.Donald Fixico (Western Michigan University).16 Gender in Native America.Betty Bell (University of Michigan).17 Metis, Mestizo, and Mixed-Blood.Jennifer Brown (University of Winnipeg) and Theresa Schenck (Washington State University).18 Transforming Outsiders: Captivity, Adoption, and Slavery Considered.Pauline Turner Strong (University of Texas at Austin).19 Translation and Cultural Brokerage.Eric Hinderaker (University of Utah).20 Native American Literatures.P. Jane Hafen (University of Nevada, Las Vegas).21 Indigenous Art: Creating Value and Sharing Beauty.Nancy Parezo (University of Arizona).22 Performative Traditions in American Indian History.George Moses (Oklahoma State University).23 American Indian Education: by Indians vs. for Indians.K. Tsianina Lomawaima (University of Arizona).24 Wanted: More Histories of Indian Identity.Alexandra Harmon (University of Washington).25 Sovereignty.Gerald Taiaike Alfred (University of Victoria).Bibliography.Index

Embracing Ambiguity: Native Peoples and Christianity in Seventeenth-Century North America

In February , the Anglo-Indian conflict known as King Philip’s War was raging in southern New England. From the colonists’ perspective, this was the low point of the war.With seeming impunity, anti-English Indians were attacking and destroying English towns in central and western Massachusetts. In the aftermath of one such attack, pursuing English troops halted at a bridge outside Medfield, Massachusetts, to read a notice that was nailed to a post. The notice read: