New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620-1675

lxxiii, 430 pp. Black-and-white illustrations. In contrast to most accounts of Puritan-Indian relations, New England Frontier argues that the first two generations ofPuritan settlers were neither generally hostile toward theirIndian neighbors nor indifferent to their territorial rights.Rather, American Puritans-especially their political andreligious leaders-sought peaceful and equitable relationsas the first step in molding the Indians into neo-Englishmen.When accumulated Indian resentments culminated in thewar of 1675, however, the relatively benign interculturalcontact of the preceding fifty-five-year period rapidly declined.With a new introduction updating developments inPuritan-Indian studies in the last fifteen years, this thirdedition affords the reader a clear, balanced overview of acomplex and sensitive area of American history.