In The Lives in Objects; Jessica Yirush Stern presents a thoroughly researched and engaging study of the deerskin trade in the colonial Southeast; equally attentive to British American and Southeastern Indian cultures of production; distribution; and consumption. Stern upends the long-standing assertion that Native Americans were solely gift givers and the British were modern commercial capitalists. This traditional interpretation casts Native Americans as victims drawn into and made dependent on a transatlantic marketplace. Stern complicates that picture by showing how both the Southeastern Indian and British American actors mixed gift giving and commodity exchange in the deerskin trade; such that Southeastern Indians retained much greater agency as producers and consumers than the standard narrative allows. By tracking the debates about Indian trade regulation; Stern also reveals that the British were often not willing to embrace modern free market values. While she sheds new light on broader issues in native and colonial history; Stern also demonstrates that concepts of labor; commerce; and material culture were inextricably intertwined to present a fresh perspective on trade in the colonial Southeast.
#1364649 in Books Stacey M Robertson 2014-12-01 2014-12-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.10 x .80 x 6.20l; .0 #File Name: 1469622173320 pagesHearts Beating for Liberty Women Abolitionists in the Old Northwest
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