Please join Andrew Lipman as he discusses his recent book, The Saltwater Frontier, a previously untold story of how the ocean became a "frontier" between colonists and Indians. When the English and Dutch empires both tried to claim the same patch of coast between the Hudson River and Cape Cod, the sea itself became the arena of contact and conflict. During the violent European invasions, the region's Algonquian-speaking Natives were navigators, boatbuilders, fishermen, pirates, and merchants who became active players in the emergence of the Atlantic World. Drawing from a wide range of English, Dutch, and archeological sources, the book uncovers a new geography of Native America that incorporates seawater as well as soil.
Andrew Lipman, a historian of early America, is Assistant Professor of History at Barnard College, Columbia University. He previously taught at Syracuse University. His research interests include the Atlantic World, early America, Native Americans, violence, technology, and the environment. His first book, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, is winner of the prestigious 2016 Bancroft Prize in American History.
Copies of The Saltwater Frontier will be available for purchase in the Newberry Bookstore. Your purchase helps support the Newberry Library and this program's featured speaker.
Download a PDF flyer for this program to post and distribute, and explore materials about the history of the Colonial Americas in the Newberry collection.
Cosponsored with the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Illinois in partnership with the University of Illinois History Department.
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