Primary Format: Paper | |
---|---|
ISBN: | 9780874512557 |
Published: | 06/01/1983 |
Pages: | 296 |
Size: | 6 x 9 in. |
Subject(s): |
First rate . . . should be required Thanksgiving Day reading.
—Boston Globe
This is an extremely useful book which one returns to again and again as a reference work. Its scope is the broadest, taking in every aspect of Indian life as the early explorers and the colonists found it, from personal appearance and characteristics to diet and agriculture, social organization, and intertribal relations. In addition, the reader learns a great deal about the New England environment, its plants, natural resources, and forest composition, and how it was shaped by the Indians. Russell many times over fulfills his goal of dispelling 'the all too common notion of native New England as peopled by a handful of savages wandering in a trackless wilderness'.
—New England Quarterly
The author has used many original sources, including very rare notes and observations made during the initial contact period between Europeans and the Indians of New England. The book is rich in illustrations and maps, and should be appreciated by both professionals, students and the general reader.
—History
The picture [Russell] offers is one of a settled, intelligent people, supplying themselves with the necessities of life, and with considerable to spare. It is the sort of daily life that historians need to know, but rarely write themselves . . . It is the fullest and most reliable treatment that I know.
—Journal of American History
HOWARD S. RUSSELL had a lifelong interest in New England's earliest inhabitants, dating back to boyhood discoveries of occasional Indian artifacts in his family's plowed fields. This led him over the last half century to a systematic examination of every account left by early explorers and observers, every reference in regional or local histories or archaeological writings; to discussions with informed persons; and to making numerous visits to Indian village sites and museums. From this wide variety of sources, therefore, he has set down this illustrated account of New England's earliest settlers. Mr. Russell was author of the widely-acclaimed A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England (UPNE, 1976), about which Smithsonian said "A readable and splendid account . . . 'sweep' is not too grand a word for this rich and meticulous manuscript."