Snowshoe Country: An Environmental and Cultural History of Winter in the Early American Northeast (Studies in Environment and History)
Cambridge University Press, 10/24/2019
EAN 9781108445542, ISBN10: 1108445543
Paperback, 328 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Snowshoe Country is an environmental and cultural history of winter in the colonial Northeast, closely examining indigenous and settler knowledge of snow, ice, and life in the cold. Indigenous communities in this region were more knowledgeable about the cold than European newcomers from temperate climates, and English settlers were especially slow to adapt. To keep surviving the winter year after year and decade after decade, English colonists relied on Native assistance, borrowed indigenous winter knowledge, and followed seasonal diplomatic protocols to ensure stable relations with tribal leaders. Thomas M. Wickman explores how fluctuations in winter weather and the halting exchange of winter knowledge both inhibited and facilitated English colonialism from the 1620s to the early 1700s. As their winter survival strategies improved, due to skills and technologies appropriated from Natives, colonial leaders were able to impose a new political ecology in the greater Northeast, projecting year-round authority over indigenous lands.
Introduction
1. Snowshoes and indigenous winter ecologies
2. Overwintering, or when colonists stayed year-round
3. Seasons of violence and routes to safety in King Philip's war
4. Frigid nights and icy days in colonial Boston
5. Wabanaki winter knowledge in the coldest years
6. Snowshoe men and a new season of want
7. The idea of apolitical New England winters
8. Seasons and survivance
Conclusion.