Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 1600-1850 (Critical Histories)

Much has been written about the forging of a British identity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The process, unconfined to the British Isles, ran across the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean and was played out in North America and the Caribbean. The identities of Irish Catholics or Highland Scots who took part in the imperial venture abroad were subject to constant renegotiation. In the process, the indigenous peoples of North America, the Caribbean, the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand were forced to redefine their own identities. Although the encounter was far from equal, it was by no means simple or monolithic

This collection explores the many complex ways in which identities were forged within Britain and among indigenous peoples through a process of collision and compromise. Contributions from Africa, Australia, and both sides of the Atlantic deal with different aspects of these encounters-for example, "Native Americans and Early Modern Concepts of Race" and "Hunting and the Politics of Masculinity in Cherokee Treaty-making, 1763-1775." Empire and Others provides a valuable study that will be of particular interest to students of Colonial American history and early modern British history.

Contributors to the volume include Philip Morgan, Christopher Bayly, Andrew Porter, Hilary Beckles, and Peter Way.