Title Abraham in arms : war and gender in colonial New England / Ann M. Little

Published Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, ©2007

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Description 1 online resource (262 pages) : illustrations, maps Series Early American studies Early American studies. Contents Frontmatter -- Contents -- Wars of the Northeastern Borderlands, 1636-1763 -- Introduction: Onward Christian Soldiers, 1678 -- Chapter 1. "You dare not fight, you are all one like women": The Contest of Masculinities in the Seventeenth Century -- Chapter 2. "What are you an Indian or an Englishman?" Cultural Cross-Dressing in the Northeastern Borderlands -- Chapter 3. "Insolent" Squaws and "Unreasonable" Masters: Indian Captivity and Family Life -- Chapter 4. "A jesuit will ruin you Body & Soul!'' Daughters of New England in Canada -- Chapter 5. "Who will be Masters of America The French or the English?" Manhood and Imperial Warfare in the Eighteenth Century -- Epilogue: On the Plains of Abraham -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments Summary In 1678, the Puritan minister Samuel Nowell preached a sermon he called "Abraham in Arms," in which he urged his listeners to remember that "Hence it is no wayes unbecoming a Christian to learn to be a Souldier." The title of Nowell's sermon was well chosen. Abraham of the Old Testament resonated deeply with New England men, as he embodied the ideal of the householder-patriarch, at once obedient to God and the unquestioned leader of his family and his people in war and peace. Yet enemies challenged Abraham's authority in New England: Indians threatened the safety of his household, subordinates in his own family threatened his status, and wives and daughters taken into captivity became baptized Catholics, married French or Indian men, and refused to return to New England. In a bold reinterpretation of the years between 1620 and 1763, Ann M. Little reveals how ideas about gender and family life were central to the ways people in colonial New England, and their neighbors in New France and Indian Country, described their experiences in cross-cultural warfare. Little argues that English, French, and Indian people had broadly similar ideas about gender and authority. Because they understood both warfare and political power to be intertwined expressions of manhood, colonial warfare may be understood as a contest of different styles of masculinity. For New England men, what had once been a masculinity based on household headship, Christian piety, and the duty to protect family and faith became one built around the more abstract notions of British nationalism, anti-Catholicism, and soldiering for the Empire. Based on archival research in both French and English sources, court records, captivity narratives, and the private correspondence of ministers and war officials, Abraham in Arms reconstructs colonial New England as a frontier borderland in which religious, cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries were permeable, fragile, and contested by Europeans and Indians alike Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-251) and index Notes In English Subject English -- New England -- History -- 18th century French -- New England -- History -- 18th century Frontier and pioneer life -- New England Indians of North America -- New England -- History Masculinity -- New England -- History Sex role -- New England -- History HISTORY -- United States -- Colonial Period (1600-1775) English Ethnic relations French Frontier and pioneer life Indians of North America Masculinity Sex role Social conditions SUBJECT New England -- Ethnic relations New England -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85091268 New England -- History, Military New England -- Social conditions Subject New England Genre/Form History Military history Form Electronic book LC no. 2006042166 ISBN 9780812202649 0812202643

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