Ian K. Steele – författare

Exploding the curious myth that the ocean is a barrier rather than a highway for communication, this unusual interdisciplinary study examines the English Atlantic context of early American life. From the winterless Caribbean to the ice-locked Hudson Bay, maritime communications in fact usually met the legitimate expectations for frequency, speed, and safety, while increased shipping, new postal services, and newspapers hastened the exchange of news. These changesin avenues of communications reflected--and, in turn, enhanced--the political, economic, and social integration of the English Atlantic between 1675 and 1740. As Steele deftly describes the influenceof physical, technological, socioeconomic, and political aspects of seaborne communication on the community, he suggests an exciting new mode of analyzing Colonial history.

This tragic history, which inspired James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, was an explosive mixture of the contending martial values of Indians, colonials, and European regulars. The conquest of Fort William Henry and the subsequent massacre of English prisoners by Indians, while under French command, is considered by historians to be a turning point in the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in the United States). Victims of tomahawk, cannibalism, or captivity, whose identities are carefully recovered from new sources, helped create a powerful racist American folk memory. In assembling and analysing the full story for the first time from original sources, Betrayals is a compelling narrative.

On the morning of August 9, 1757, British and colonial officers defending the besieged Fort William Henry surrendered to French forces, accepting the generous "parole of honor" offered by General Montcalm. As the column of British and colonials marched with their families and servants to Fort Edward some miles south, they were set upon by the Indian allies of the French. The resulting "massacre," thought to be one of the bloodiest days of the French and Indian War, became forever ingrained in American myth by James Fenimore Cooper's classic novel The Last of the Mohicans.In Betrayals, historian Ian K. Steele gives us the true story behind Cooper's famous book, bringing to life men such as British commander of Fort William Henry George Monro, English General Webb, his French counterpart Montcalm, and the wild frontier world of Natty Bumppo. The Battle of Lake George and the building of the fort marked the return of European military involvement in intercolonial wars, producing an explosive mixture of the contending martial values of Indians, colonials, and European regulars. The Americans and British who were attacked after surrendering, as well as French officers and their Indian allies (the latter enraged by the small amount of English booty allowed them by the French), all felt deeply betrayed. Contemporary accounts of the victims--whose identities Steele has carefully reconstructed from newly discovered sources--helped to create a powerful, racist American folk memory that still resonates today. Survivors included men and women who were adopted into Indian tribes, sold to Canadians in a well-established white servant trade, or jailed in Canada or France as prisoners of war.Explaining the motives for the most notorious massacre of the colonial period, Steele offers a gripping tale of a fledgling America, one which places the tragic events of the Seven Years' War in a fresh historical context. Anyone interested in the fact behind the fiction will find it fascinating reading.

The Human Tradition in Colonial America is an entertaining as well an enlightening book that brings the colonial period to life through the stories of the colorful participants who helped mold the British dependency that would eventually become the United States.