Settlers in Indian Country: Sovereignty and Indigenous Power in Early America

Prior, Charles

Abstract

The aim of this short book is to foreground Native American conceptions of sovereignty and power in order to refine the place of settler colonialism in American colonial and early republican history. It argues that Indigenous concepts of sovereignty were rooted in complex metaphorical language, in historical understandings of alliance, and in mobility in a landscape of layered interconnections of power. Where some versions of the interpretive paradigm of settler colonialism emphasise the violent ‘elimination of the native’, this work reveals that diplomatic transactions between the Iroquois Confederacy and British colonial and imperial agents reveal a hybrid language of alliance, sovereignty and territory. These languages and concepts of inter-cultural diplomacy provide contexts that suggest a more nuanced and dynamic relationship between colonialism and Indigenous power.

Citation

Prior, C. (2020). Settlers in Indian Country: Sovereignty and Indigenous Power in Early America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883979

• Book Type: Monograph
• Acceptance Date: Jul 2, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 25, 2020
• Publication Date: Dec 17, 2020
• Deposit Date: Aug 29, 2020
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Series Title: Cambridge Elements. Elements in Comparative Political Theory
• Series Number: 1
• ISBN: 9781108793391
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883979
• Keywords: Law, Treaties, Sovereignty, Colonialism, Iroquois
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3533219
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/settlers-in-indian-country/188B117ABC95F12253CF5A2A0E58D3B0