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Hinderaker, Eric

WORK TITLE: Boston’s Massacre
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1959
WEBSITE:
CITY: Salt Lake City
STATE: UT
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:

http://www.macmillanlearning.com/catalog/Author/erichinderaker * https://faculty.utah.edu/u0030731-ERIC_A_HINDERAKER/biography/index.hml * https://faculty.utah.edu/bytes/curriculumVitae.hml?id=u0030731

RESEARCHER NOTES:

PERSONAL

Born 1959.

EDUCATION:

Augustana College, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1981; University of Colorado, M.A., 1985; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1991.

ADDRESS

  • Home - Salt Lake City, UT.
  • Office - Department of History, University of Utah, 310 Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Bldg., 215 S. Central Campus Dr., Salt Lake City, UT 84112.

CAREER

Historian, writer, educator. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, assistant professor of history, 1991-98, associate professor, 1998-2006, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, 1999-2002 and 2011-14, chair, Department of History, 2002-08, professor of history, 2006–, interim chair, Department of History, 2016-18. Presenter of numerous papers at professional conferences; member of a number of campus committees; manuscript reviewer for publishers.

AWARDS:

Recipient of numerous fellowships and grants. Virgil Award, University of Utah, 1996, 2001; Dixon Ryan Fox Prize, New York Historical Association, 2009, and Herbert H. Lehman Prize, New York Academy of History, 2010, both for The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery; Virgil C. Aldrich Fellow, Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah, 2015; Faculty Fellow Award, University Research Committee, University of Utah, 2016. 

WRITINGS

  • Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1997 , published as (), 1999
  • (Editor, with Kirsten Fischer) Colonial American History, Blackwell Publishers (Malden, MA), 2002
  • (With Peter C. Mancall) At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 2003
  • The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2010
  • (With James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, and Robert O. Self) America's History, St. Martins (New York, NY), 2014
  • (With James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, and Robert O. Self) America: A Concise History, St Martin's (New York, NY), 2015
  • Boston's Massacre, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2017

Contributor of scores of articles to journals and of chapters to scholarly books.

SIDELIGHTS

A professor history at the University of Utah, Eric Hinderaker focuses much of his research and writing on colonial America. Among his titles are Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800; At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America; The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery; and Boston’s Massacre. 

Elusive Empires

Hinderaker’s first book, Elusive Empires, examines three competing powers attempting to establish empire in the Ohio Valley from the late seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The American colonies and later the fledgling United States competed with Britain and France to extend control over this rich valley, and Hinderaker focuses on the relations between Europeans and Native Americans to frame the story. Each of these three powers tried to establish an empire in the Ohio Valley, leading to conflicts, including the American Revolution in the West. “Hinderaker argues that there were three types of empires,” noted Historian reviewer Lucy Eldersveld Murphy. The author contends that the French and British established empires of commerce, supplanted by the fur trade, as well as empires of land, where settlement was the major goal. However, with the American Revolution, a third category was created, the empire of freedom and liberty. It was this third type of empire that finally succeeded in the Ohio Valley, as Hinderaker demonstrates in his study.

Elusive Empires provides a good overview of the Ohio Valley’s political and economic history for the eighteenth century,” noted Murphy. “It is clear, well-organized, and persuasive, and will be useful to readers interested in midwestern, frontier, early American, and Native American history.” Writing in the Michigan Historical Review, Arthur J. Worrall also had praise, observing: “This is the story of the dispossession and flight of Native Americans, from English colonists in Pennsylvania early in the eighteenth century, and late in the century from the Euroamericans in the Ohio River Valley. This study is tangential to Michigan history, but nonetheless useful. The focus on territories to the south of what later became Michigan provides background.” American Indian Quarterly writer Paula Sherman similarly commented: “Elusive Empires is a fine addition to the growing number of studies that deal with intercultural exchange and trade in the colonial period. It should be included in any course dealing with Native American or early American history.” Lee Soltow, writing in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, was also impressed with this study, noting: “Intriguingly, Hinderaker often deals in wide sweeps of geography–from Quebec to Pennsylvania, Kentucky, St. Louis, Karkaris, and New Orleans. His analysis of the various cultures is fascinating.” Likewise, Canadian Journal of History contributor Ian K. Steele termed this work a “thoughtful and well-written synthesis,” adding, “This engaging book appreciably advances our understanding of the confrontation between
Amerindians and Euroamerican settlers as the United States framed their independence.”

At the Edge of Empire

At the Edge of Empire, written with Peter C. Mancall, is an examination of the relationship between European settlers and Native Americans on the western edge of the North American empire controlled then by the British. This region was known as the backcountry, and as it was just beyond the imperial reach of the British, it became a land of opportunity for settlers and a land of conflict for the Native Americans already inhabiting the region. As more and more settlers arrived in the region, the Native Americans were not only shoved off their lands, but their numbers were also decreased by warfare and disease. Farmers settled the land, and created self-sufficient communities, and in doing so, began to resent the attempted control of London. Such resentment helped to fuel the American Revolution.

Reviewing At the Edge of Empire in Journal of World History, Gray H. Whaley noted: “Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall have successfully synthesized the complex world of British backcountry resettlement in a brief, readable format. They cover the principal events, rationales, and themes of English colonization in North America from its advent to the American Revolution.” Whaley further commented: “Hinderaker and Mancall attempt a balanced narrative. They include brief introductions to the indigenous concept of usufruct land ownership to offset the more familiar English concept, and they include many native historical figures.” However, Whale felt that this “attempt falls short of balanced integration.” Canadian Journal of History reviewer Ricardo A. Herrera had a higher assessment, terming the work an “excellent synthesis of recent scholarship on the
British North American backcountry.” Herrera concluded: “At the Edge of Empire answers the need for a succinct synthetic treatment of the North American backcountry. Its clarity, sophistication, breadth, depth, and concision will serve the needs of scholars and students alike.”

The Two Hendricks

Hinderaker does historical detective work in The Two Hendricks, unwinding the confusion between two eighteenth-century Mohawk leaders named Hendrick. One was known as King Hendrick, and he died  in 1755 fighting the French in defense of the British claims in North America. The other Hendrick had done similar service for the British half a century earlier in Albany, then a frontier town. These two Hendricks were for long thought to be one and the same Indian leader, but Hinderaker corrects this misconception with biographical narratives for both, noting at the same time their similarities. As Mohawks, they were both members of the Iroquois nation and allied with the English. They were both also Christians and worked toward cooperation with the British settlers rather than confrontation.

Library Journal reviewer John Burch had praise for The Two Hendricks, noting: “Highly recommended as both a historical work and an outstanding example for historiographers in writing ethnohistory.” Canadian Journal of History contributor David P. Dewar also had a high assessment, commenting: “Hinderaker has produced a masterful history of a poorly understood relationship between Natives and Europeans in Iroquoia. He has mined sources meticulously and thoroughly. But as a biography, the book has a remarkable literary quality that allows readers to become intimate with all the characters. Indians and Europeans are stripped of stereotypes and become complex human beings concerned with their traditions, their contemporaries, and their futures. And the trajectories of their lives seem to compose a plot line that is irresistible.”

Boston's Massacre

In his 2017 work, Boston’s Massacre, Hinderaker recounts an incident in Boston in 1770 when British soldiers fired into a crowd of people. There were five deaths as a result. Called the Boston Massacre, this became a rallying cry with the American settlers against British dominion of North America. The author looks at this incident and the competing ways in which it was recorded, drawing similarities to similar events in more recent history including the Kent State shootings during the Vietnam War, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Indeed, one of the victims of the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks was, as Hinderaker points out, the first recorded African American victim of such violence in the Revolutionary period.

“This book [is] important reading for anyone interested in questions regarding the limits of authority and protest,” noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer of Boston’s Massacre. Further praise was offered by Library Journal contributor Jessica Holland who termed it a “compelling and well-researched account of the Boston Massacre, for readers seeking more refined studies of early American history.” Similarly, a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded: “The author ably exposes the symbolic import of the massacre as it defined the limits of legitimate authority and of legitimate popular protest. While occasionally bogged down in detail, this study of the lead-up to the American Revolution effectively explores the major players and difficult conditions.” Wall Street Journal Online writer Mark Spencer was also impressed by Boston’s Massacre, noting: “Fascinating. … Hinderaker’s meticulous research shows that the Boston Massacre was contested from the beginning. … The Boston Massacre’s contested meanings have plenty to tell us about America’s identity, past and present.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

  • American Indian Quarterly, fall, 1998, Paula Sherman, review of Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800, p. 547.

  • Canadian Journal of History, April, 1998, Ian K. Steele, review of Elusive Empires, p. 129; December, 20014, Ricardo A. Herrera, review of At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America, p. 631; autumn, 2011, David P. Dewar, review of The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery,  p. 406.

  • Historian,  fall, 1999, Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, review of Elusive Empires, p. 154.

  • Journal of Interdisciplinary History, summer, 1998, Lee Soltow, review of Elusive Empires, p. 131.

  • Journal of World History, September, 2005, Gray H. Whaley, review of At the Edge of Empire, p. 377.

  • Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2017, review of Boston’s Massacre.

  • Library Journal, November 1, 2009, John Burch, review of The Two Hendricks, p. 72; February 1, 2017, Jessica Holland, review of  Boston’s Massacre, p. 89.

  • Michigan Historical Review, fall, 1999, Arthur J. Worrall, review of Elusive Empires, p. 137.

  • Publishers Weekly, January 30, 2017, review of Boston’s Massacre, p. 191.

ONLINE

  • Macmillan Learning Website, http://www.macmillanlearning.com/ (September 18, 2017), “Eric Hinderaker.”

  • University of Utah, Eric Hinderaker Website, https://faculty.utah.edu/ (September 18, 2017), “Eric Hinderaker.”

  • Wall Street Journal Online, https://www.wsj.com/ (March 10, 2017), Mark Spencer, review of Boston’s Massacre.*

  • Colonial American History Blackwell Publishers (Malden, MA), 2002
  • At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 2003
  • The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2010
  • America's History St. Martins (New York, NY), 2014
  • America: A Concise History St Martin's (New York, NY), 2015
  • Boston's Massacre Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2017
1. Boston's massacre LCCN 2016038804 Type of material Book Personal name Hinderaker, Eric, author. Main title Boston's massacre / Eric Hinderaker. Published/Produced Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017. Description x, 358 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm ISBN 9780674048331 (alk. paper) CALL NUMBER E215.4 .H66 2017 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 2. America : a concise history LCCN 2015431327 Type of material Book Personal name Henretta, James A., author. Main title America : a concise history / James A. Henretta, Eric Hinderaker, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self. Edition Sixth edition. Published/Produced Boston : Bedford / St Martin's, [2015] Description 2 volumes (various pagings) : color illustrations, color maps ; 24 cm ISBN 1457648652 (v. 1) 9781457648656 (v. 1) 1457648644 (v. 2) 9781457648649 (v. 2) Links Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1509/2015431327-b.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1509/2015431327-d.html Shelf Location FLM2015 227104 CALL NUMBER E178.1 .H5 2015 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2) Shelf Location FLM2015 210983 CALL NUMBER E178.1 .H5 2015 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2) 3. America's history LCCN 2016429759 Type of material Book Main title America's history / James A. Henretta, University of Maryland, Eric Hinderaker, University of Utah, Rebecca Edwards, Vassar College, Robert O. Self, Brown University. Edition Eighth edition. Published/Produced Boston : Bedford/St. Martins, [2014] ©2014 Description 2 volumes : color illustrations, color maps ; 28 cm ISBN 9781457628160 (v. 1) 1457628163 (v. 1) 9781457673825 1457673827 9781457628177 (v. 2) 9781457629013 (v. 2 : loose-leaf) Links Publisher description https://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1702/2016429759-d.html Table of contents only https://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1702/2016429759-t.html CALL NUMBER E178.1 .A4937 2014 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 4. The two Hendricks : unraveling a Mohawk mystery LCCN 2009020267 Type of material Book Personal name Hinderaker, Eric. Main title The two Hendricks : unraveling a Mohawk mystery / Eric Hinderaker. Published/Created Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2010. Description viii, 354 p. : ill., maps ; 22 cm. ISBN 9780674035799 (alk. paper) Shelf Location FLS2014 060017 CALL NUMBER E99.M8 H56 2010 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS1) Shelf Location FLS2014 060018 CALL NUMBER E99.M8 H56 2010 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS1) 5. At the edge of empire : the backcountry in British North America LCCN 2002005369 Type of material Book Personal name Hinderaker, Eric. Main title At the edge of empire : the backcountry in British North America / Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall. Published/Created Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, c2003. Description ix, 210 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. ISBN 0801871360 (acid-free paper) 0801871379 (pbk.) Links Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/jhu051/2002005369.html Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/jhu051/2002005369.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/jhu051/2002005369.html Shelf Location FLS2015 011157 CALL NUMBER E188 .H56 2003 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS2) Shelf Location FLS2015 011160 CALL NUMBER E188 .H56 2003 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS2) 6. Colonial American history LCCN 2001043974 Type of material Book Main title Colonial American history / edited by Kirsten Fischer and Eric Hinderaker. Published/Created Malden, Mass. : Blackwell Publishers, 2002. Description xvi, 385 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN 063121853X (acid-free paper) 0631218548 (pbk. : acid-free paper) Links Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy034/2001043974.html Shelf Location FLM2015 056918 CALL NUMBER E188 .C698 2002 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2) Shelf Location FLM2015 031653 CALL NUMBER E188 .C698 2002 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2)
  • Eric Hinderaker Home Page - https://faculty.utah.edu/bytes/curriculumVitae.hml?id=u0030731

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    1Curriculum VitaeERIC A. HINDERAKERDepartment of History470 Northmont WayUniversity of UtahSalt Lake City, UT 84103310 Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Buildingeric.hinderaker@utah.edu215 S. Central Campus DrivePh: 801-585-0335Salt Lake City, UT 84112Fx: 801-585-0580Education1991Ph.D., History, Harvard University1985M.A., History, University of Colorado1981B.A. magna cum laude, History and Philosophy, Augustana College (S.D.)Academic and Administrative Positions2016-18Interim Chair, Department of History, University of Utah.2011-14Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, University of Utah.2006-Professor, Department of History, University of Utah.2002-08Chair, Department of History, University of Utah.1999-2002Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, University of Utah.1998-2006Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Utah.1991-98Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Utah.Books2017Boston’s Massacre(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).2010The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), awarded the Dixon Ryan Fox Prize, 2009, and the Herbert H. Lehman Prize, 2014.2003At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America, co-authored with Peter C. Mancall, in the series Regional Interpretations of Early America, edited by Jack Greene and J. R. Pole (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press).1997Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800 (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress).
    2Textbook2014America’s History, 8thed., co-authored with James Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, and Robert Self (Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s).Works in Progress“The Americas in the Early Modern Era: Origins to Independence and Revolution,” book manuscript co-authored with Rebecca Horn.“Origin Stories: Frederick Jackson Turner and Early American History,” book manuscriptco-authored with François Furstenberg.EditedCollections2006American Views: Documents in American History, co-edited with Robert Goldberg (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing [1sted. 1998]).2001Colonial American History, co-edited with Kirsten Fischer, in the series Blackwell Readers in AmericanSocial and Cultural History, ed. Jacqueline Jones (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers).Fellowships, Research Grants, and Honors2016Faculty Fellow Award, University Research Committee, University of Utah.2015-16Security Pacific Short-Term Fellow, Huntington Library.2015Virgil C. AldrichFellow, Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah.2014Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York Historyfrom the New York Academy of History, for The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery.2011Professor of the Year, Phi Alpha Theta Alpha Rho chapter.Elected non-resident member, Colonial Society of Massachusetts.2009-11Co-principal Investigatorwith Gregory Smoak, with John Alexander, Jenel Cope, and Timothy Glenn, “Historical Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering Activities of the Bannock and Shoshone Peoples in the States of Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada,” a grant administered through the American West Center and funded by the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, $150,000.2009Dixon Ryan Fox Prize for the best book manuscript on New York historyfrom the New York Historical Association, for The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery.
    3Fellowships, Research Grants, and Honors(cont’d.)2008-09Sabbatical and Administrative Leave, University of Utah.2001Virgil Award for outstanding graduate student mentoring, History Graduate Student Association, University of Utah.1997-98Faculty Fellow Award, University of Utah.Research Assignment, College of Humanities, University of Utah.1996Virgil Award for outstanding graduate student mentoring, History Graduate Student Association, University of Utah.1994-95National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship-in-Residence, John Carter Brown Library.1994-95University Research Committee Faculty Research Grant, University ofUtah.1992National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections Grant.Robert L. Middlekauff Fellowship, Huntington Library.1990Charles Warren Center Summer Research Grant.1989-90Artemas Ward Dissertation Fellowship, Harvard University.Articles and EssaysIn revision“European Emigration to the Americas, 1492-1800: A Hemispheric View,” Journal of Early American History.2012“Anglo-Amerindian Diplomatic Relationsin the Americas,” in Huw Bowen, Elizabeth Mancke, and John Reid, eds.,Britain’s Oceanic Empire: Projecting Imperium in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, ca. 1550-1800(New York: Cambridge University Press)218-248.2010“Territorial Crossings: Histories and Historiographies of the Early Americas,” with Rebecca Horn, in The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 395-432.2007“Declaring Independence: The Ohio Indians in the Seven Years’ War,” in Cultures in Conflict: The Seven Years’ War in North America, ed. Warren Hofstra (New York: Rowman and Littlefield), 105-26.
    4Articles and Essays (cont’d.)2002“Memories Under Siege: Rites of Power and Commemoration in Occupied Boston,” in Lucia Carle and Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux, eds., Situazioni d’Assedio/Cities Under Siege/Etats de Siege(Florence: Pagnini e Martinelli), 407-12.2001“Translation and Cultural Brokerage,” in Neal Salisbury and Phil Deloria,eds., The Blackwell Companion to Native American History(Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 357-375.“‘Liberating Contrivances’: Narrative and Identity in MidwesternHistories,” in Andrew R. L. Cayton and Susan Gray, eds., The American Midwest: Essays in Regional History(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 48-68.“Westmoreland County and the Struggle for Empire: The Search forAuthority in the Pennsylvania Backcountry,” Westmoreland History,4-17.“Liberty and Power in the Old Northwest, 1763-1800,” in David CurtisSkaggs and Larry Nelson, eds., The Sixty Years’ War for the Great Lakes(Lansing: Michigan State University Press), 227-242.2000“The Amerindian Population in 1763,” in Jack Greene and J. R. Pole, eds., A Companion to the American Revolution, (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 94-98.1996“The ‘Four Indian Kings’ and the Imaginative Construction of the First British Empire,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 487-526.Nineteen entries in The Colonial Wars of North America, 1512-1763: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan Gallay (New York: Garland Publishing).ReviewEssays2010Roundtable review, Leonard J. Sadosky, Revolutionary Negotiations: Indians, Empires, and Diplomats in the Founding of America(University of Virginia Press, 2009), H-Diplo Roundtable Review11, 16-19; http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XI-38.pdf.2007“The King’s New Clothes,” Reviews in American History35, 184-90.2002“Still Life With Empire,” Common-place2, on-line at http://www.common-place.org/vol-02/no-02/reviews/hinderaker.shtml.2000“The Empire Hangs On,” Reviews in American History28, 506-12.
    5ReviewEssays(cont’d.)1998“What Do Merchants Believe? Trade and Empire in Colonial New York,”Reviews in American History26, 650-55.Book Reviewsin:The American Historical Review, The Journal of American History, The William and Mary Quarterly, Journal of the Early Republic, New EnglandQuarterly, The Western Historical Quarterly, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Common-Place, The International History Review, American IndianQuarterly, New York History, Ohio History, Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiannes d’histoire, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Southern Cultures, The Journal of Southern History, Studies in American Indian Literatures, Religious Studies Review, American Studies, andThe Historian.Invited Lectures2016“‘Motley Rabble’ or Martyrs for Liberty? The Boston Massacre and the Problem of Community,” Turning Points Lecture Series, Utah Valley University.“‘Motley Rabble’ or Martyrs for Liberty? The Boston Massacre and the Search for a Usable Past,” Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center Works-in-Progress Talks, University of Utah.2013“Empire of Liberty, Empire inArms,” British Historical Studies Colloquium, Yale University.“Boston’s Massacre: Military-Civilian Relations in the Anglo-Atlantic World,” Salt Lake City Public Library.2012“Origin Stories: The Filson Club and the ‘Turnerian Moment’ in American Historiography,” keynote with François Furstenberg at “The Long Strugglefor the Ohio Valley,” Filson Institute, Louisville, KY.“Boston’s Massacre, Britain’s Empire: Military-Civilian Relations in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” Circum-Atlantic Studies Seminar, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.2011“Plotting a Massacre: The Problems of Character, Motive, and Resolution in the Story of the Boston Massacre,” Bay Area Seminar in Early American History, San Francisco.2010“The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery,” at the David Library of the American Revolution,Washington Crossing, PA; and the Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY.
    6Invited Lectures (cont’d.)2009“The Ball-Headed War Club as Weapon, Ritual Object, and Artifact,” Utah Museum of Fine Arts for the Splendid Heritage exhibit.“The Land Beneath Their Feet: Understanding Indian Property Transfers in Early American History,” McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.2001Roundtable discussion of “Inventing Indians: Kings and Caciques in Colonial American Histories,” at the Early American History Seminar at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.2000“Westmoreland County and the Struggle for Empire in the Ohio Country,” First Annual St. Clair Lecture, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Greensburg, PA.Conference and Symposium Papers2015“Arms in the Colonial City: The Military Revolution in the Americas, 1689-1775,” at the “World and Ground” workshop sponsored by the William and Mary Quarterlyand the USC-Huntington Library Early Modern Studies Institute, Los Angeles CA.“Empire of Liberty, Empire in Arms: The Boston Massacre in an Anglo-Atlantic Context,” at “‘So Sudden an Alteration’: The Causes, Course, and Consequences of the American Revolution,” sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston MA.2011“Indigenous America,” with Rebecca Horn, at a roundtable entitled “State of the Field: Atlantic World and Beyond,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Houston, TX.“Crowds and Community: Politics and Society in Boston from the Knowles Riot to the Massacre,” at the Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture, New Paltz, NY.2010“Projecting Authority in Anglo-America: Daniel Coxe and Overseas Enterprise in Restoration England,” symposium sponsored by the Institute of Historical Research and Sussex University, Venice Italy.“The Boston Massacre and the Problem of Imperial Governance,” at “1763 and All That: Temptations of Empire in the British World During theDecade After the Seven Years’ War,” The Institute for Historical Studies, University of Texas, Austin.
    7Conference and Symposium Papers(cont’d.)2008“British-Native American Diplomacy in a Transatlantic Context,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, New York City.“The Governor and the Indian King,” USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute Roundtable on new research in early American Indian history, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.2007“Anglo-Indigenous Diplomatic Relations inthe Americas,” at British Asia and the British Atlantic, 1500-1820: Two Worlds or One?, University ofSussex.2004“Declaring Independence: The Ohio Indians and the Seven Years’ War,” at Cultures in Conflict: The Seven Years’ War in North America, Shenandoah University, Winchester, VA.2003“Mapping Meaning: Representational Systems in the Colonial Americas,” co-authored with Rebecca Horn, Western Humanities Alliance conference, Salt Lake City, UT.2001“Inventing Indians: Kings and Caciques in ColonialAmerican Histories,” co-authored with Rebecca Horn, delivered at Greater American Histories?, a symposium sponsored by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, and the American Historical Association—Pacific Coast Branch Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia.2000“Envisioning Dominion: Native Americans and the Eighteenth-Century British Imperial Project,” at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and at “Sometimes an Art”: A Symposium in Celebration of Bernard Bailyn: Fifty Years of Teaching and Beyond, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.“British Expansion,” at a roundtable discussion on European Colonial Expansion in Comparative Perspective, Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO.“Comparative Colonial Histories: The Americas as a Region,” at Three Worlds Meet: Colonialism, Intercultural Contact, and Cultural Identities in the Americas, a symposium sponsored by the University of Houston.1999“Memories Under Siege: Rites of Power and Commemoration in Occupied Boston,” at Cities Under Siege, Montalcino, Italy.
    14DepartmentService(cont’d.)2004-05Gender/US West Search Committee joint w/ Gender Studies (Co-chair).2003-04Department Chair.Executive Committee (Chair).US History Combined Senior Search Committee (Chair).2002-03Department Chair.Executive Committee (Chair).Korean History Search Committee (Chair).South Asian History Search Committee (Chair).2001-02Director of Graduate Studies.Executive Committee.Teaching Committee (Chair).2000-01Director of Graduate Studies.Executive Committee.Native American search committee member.U.S. Foreign Relations search committee member.1999-2000Director of Graduate Studies.Executive Committee.Wilson Lecture Committee.1998-99Graduate Committee.U.S.History omnibus search committee member (hiring for U.S. environmental history, Native American history, U.S. women’s history, 19thcentury cultural/intellectual history).1998Interim Director of Graduate Studies, spring.1997-98Graduate Committee.1996-97Graduate Committee.Teaching Committee.Wilson Lecture Committee.1995-96Chair, Wilson Lecture Committee.Graduate Committee.Visiting Scholar Committee.1993-94Graduate Committee.Visiting Scholar Committee.Department External ReviewGraduate Subcommittee.
    15DepartmentService(cont’d.)1992-93Visiting Scholar Committee.1991-92Executive Committee.Graduate Committee.Faculty Seminar Committee.Courses TaughtHistory 1700 American CivilizationHistory 3700 Colonial AmericaHistory 3710 American RevolutionHistory 4290/6290 The Americas After ColumbusHistory 4720 The Worlds of Benjamin FranklinHistory 4990 Senior SeminarHistory 7500 Proseminar: U.S. History to 1877History 7850 Seminar in U.S. Colonial and Early National HistoryPh.D. Supervisory Committee Chair(current):Kendra KennedyBrandon ClarkPh.D. Supervisory Committee Chair(completed):William Martin (2014)Kenneth Mulholland (2010)Eileen Wallis (2004)Steven Danver (2003)Ph.D. Supervisory Committee Member(current):Nels AbramsJohn ChristensenMelissa FergusonNathan JonesChris Krzeminsky(Political Science)Debra MarshSam NewtonLeighton QuarlesTravis RossMike ShamoAlex SmithJeffreyTurnerStormy VehnekampLori WilkinsonM.A. Supervisory Committee Chair(completed):Michael Taney (2014)Michelle Fellows (2010)
    16Danny Noorlander (2005)Melissa Ferguson (2004)Sara Cranford (2002)James Breitinger (2001)Meredith Elliott (2001)Cheryl Willis (2001)Lincoln Bramwell (2000)M.S. Supervisory Committee Chair(completed):Todd Landeen(2014)Robert Stoddard (2011)

  • University of Utah - https://faculty.utah.edu/u0030731-ERIC_A_HINDERAKER/biography/index.hml

    ERIC A HINDERAKER
    Curriculum Vitae - opens new window
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    ERIC A HINDERAKER portrait
    Professor, History
    Email eric.hinderaker@utah.edu
    Phone 801-585-0335
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    More Contact Info
    Biography
    Education
    Bachelor of Arts, AUGUSTANA COLLEGE
    Doctor of Philosophy, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
    Master of Arts, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOUL
    Honors & Awards
    Security Pacific Short-Term Fellowship, 2015-16 academic year. Huntington Library, 03/2015
    The Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York History (2010). New York Academy of History, 02/14/2014
    Elected Non-Resident Member. Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 09/15/2011
    Professor of the Year. Phi Alpha Theta Alpha Rho chapter, 04/28/2011
    Dixon Ryan Fox Prize. New York State Historical Association, 2009
    Languages
    French, basic.
    Spanish, basic.
    Geographical Regions of Interest
    Americas
    Northern America
    United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

  • Macmillan Learning - http://www.macmillanlearning.com/catalog/Author/erichinderaker

    Eric Hinderaker
    Eric Hinderaker is Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Utah. His research explores early modern imperialism, relations between Europeans and Native Americans, and comparative colonization. His publications include The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery, which won the Dixon Ryan Fox Prize; Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800; and, with Peter C. Mancall, At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America. He is currently working on two books, one about the Boston Massacre and another, with Rebecca Horn, on patterns of European colonization in the Americas.

QUOTE:
compelling and well-researched account of the Boston Massacre, for readers
seeking more refined studies of early American history
Hinderaker, Eric. Boston's Massacre
Jessica Holland
Library Journal.
142.2 (Feb. 1, 2017): p89.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Hinderaker, Eric. Boston's Massacre. Harvard Univ. Mar. 2017.384p. illus. maps, notes, index. ISBN 9780674048331.
$29.95. HIST
In 1770, British soldiers fired into a crowd of people, killing five. Dubbed the Boston Massacre, it has become one of
the most iconic moments in American history. Hinderaker (history, Univ. of Utah; The Two Hendricks) deepens
readers' understanding of the event in a three-pronged approach: explaining the massacre's historical context,
examining the 18th-century documents that create dueling narratives of the event, and highlighting the different
moments in history--namely the Kent State shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement--that invoke the
massacre's memory after violent crowd-policing incidents. Readers are left with a nuanced understanding of the way
we shape historical narratives after any major event. Confusion gives way to competing interests, constructing onesided
narratives, which then leads to a residual memory that fades over time. By the end, Hinderaker shows that the
legacy of the Boston Massacre lives on, especially through the continual invocation of Crispus Attucks, one of the five
dead, as a martyr for American liberty and the first known African American victim of police brutality of the
Revolutionary period. VERDICT A compelling and well-researched account of the Boston Massacre, for readers
seeking more refined studies of early American history.--Jessica Holland, Univ. of KY, Lexington
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Holland, Jessica. "Hinderaker, Eric. Boston's Massacre." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 89+. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479301281&it=r&asid=96f49a4f17bd7702280af72e09122719.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
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QUOTE:
this book
important reading for anyone interested in questions regarding the limits of authority and protest
Boston's Massacre
Publishers Weekly.
264.5 (Jan. 30, 2017): p191.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Boston's Massacre
Eric Hinderaker. Belknap, $29.95 (350p)
ISBN 978-0-674-04833-1
Hinderaker (The Two Hendricks), professor of history at the University of Utah, details the context and aftermath of
Boston Massacre of Mar. 5, 1770, when British soldiers fired into a Boston crowd, killing five people. The massacre
has long represented a turning point in colonial America's relationship with Britain, but competing narratives about the
night remain fundamentally unresolved. Hinderaker claims no definitive version of the event, instead offering a
thoughtful meditation on the episode's significance for shared American identity and memory. Untangling the complex
circumstances under which Britain stationed thousands of troops in Boston in the peacetime of 1768, Hinderaker maps
the colonial anxieties regarding imperial control that came to a head with the shootings. His portrayal of the massacre,
as well as the months of trials that followed, emphasizes the political and social chaos that shaped colonist-British
relations while demonstrating how contrasting interpretations of the event reflected deeper conflicts about race, class,
and colonial rights. By calling attention to the challenges of assessing eyewitness narratives, Hinderaker also manages
to bring his account into conversation with recent events. He ends with a provocative, albeit disappointingly brief,
reflection on the massacre's symbolic resonance with more recent examples of police brutality, making this book
important reading for anyone interested in questions regarding the limits of authority and protest. Maps & illus. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Boston's Massacre." Publishers Weekly, 30 Jan. 2017, p. 191+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480195228&it=r&asid=bbf004d90b357bdf3aa804347f5953b4.
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QUOTE:
The author ably
exposes the symbolic import of the massacre as it defined the limits of legitimate authority and of legitimate popular
protest. While occasionally bogged down in detail, this study of the lead-up to the American Revolution effectively
explores the major players and difficult conditions.

Hinderaker, Eric: BOSTON'S MASSACRE
Kirkus Reviews.
(Jan. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Hinderaker, Eric BOSTON'S MASSACRE Belknap/Harvard Univ. (Adult Nonfiction) $29.95 3, 5 ISBN: 978-0-674-
04833-1
A new history of "perhaps the most densely described incident in early American history."In his examination of the
1770 Boston Massacre, Hinderaker (History/Univ. of Utah; The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery, 2009,
etc.) deftly explores the characters of British leaders, American administrators, and those who stirred what many
considered a mob. Boston was the crucible of the American Revolution, and the British occupation served as the
catalyst that eventually built to the violent events of March 5. The troops sent to Boston were symbols of Britain's
overwhelming power over the colonies, and the standing army served as a threat to the independence of the local
government. The author explores how England was trying to control a colony substantially increased in size, and the
primary dilemma was the recurrent antagonism of Bostonians: their reactions to the Liberty Incident, the Townshend
Duties, and the Stamp Act. Administrators and tax collectors were harassed, their homes invaded and destroyed. The
troops' powerlessness is the key here; they were sent to quell rebellious actions. They were never requested by civil
power and thus had no power to react to citizens' agitation unless the confusing and frustrating Riot Act was read. The
incident of March 5 was caused by the troops, who were facing very real threats but were forbidden to react, being
pushed too far. When someone heard (or didn't) "fire," shots rang out, killing five. What really happened and what
people said happened were two different things, but the symbolic power of the massacre transcends the details. The
trials of the soldiers, delayed for months, cleared all but two, settling few disputes about the incident. The author ably
exposes the symbolic import of the massacre as it defined the limits of legitimate authority and of legitimate popular
protest. While occasionally bogged down in detail, this study of the lead-up to the American Revolution effectively
explores the major players and difficult conditions.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Hinderaker, Eric: BOSTON'S MASSACRE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475357408&it=r&asid=ab4345c3fd62717fb9f95a0c1e82c9c3.
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QUOTE:
Highly recommended as both a historical work and an outstanding
example for historiographers in writing ethnohistory
Hinderaker, Eric. The Two Hendricks:
Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery
John Burch
Library Journal.
134.18 (Nov. 1, 2009): p72.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* Hinderaker, Eric. The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery. Harvard Univ. Jan. 2010. c.368p. illus. maps.
index. ISBN 978-0-674-03579-9. $35. HIST
The deeds of Hendrick, long viewed as a Mohawk sachem from the 18th century who believed in accommodating
Great Britain, are noted in scattered documents that span approximately half a century. The documents suggest that he
was either a very old man when he died on the battlefield in 1755--or that the historical record needed to be
reinterpreted. Hinderaker (history, Univ. of Utah; Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-
1800) utilizes creative and in-depth research to construct a biography of two Mohawk leaden whose actions were
dictated not by British interests but by those of the Mohawks and other members of the Iroquois Confederacy during an
era when the Iroquois were the linchpin between New France and Great Britain. Since the author assumes that readers
are already versed in Iroquois and Euro-American diplomacy, some may need to read Timothy J. Shannon's Iroquois
Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier as a primer. Readers interested in frontier diplomacy should also read
Fintan O'Toole's White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America, a biography of Great Britain's
intermediary with the Mohawks. VERDICT Highly recommended as both a historical work and an outstanding
example for historiographers in writing ethnohistory.--John Burgh, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY
Burch, John
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Burch, John. "Hinderaker, Eric. The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery." Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2009, p.
72. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA211439873&it=r&asid=8977e3128809c96287a87b53f2e8dd6b.
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QUOTE:
Hinderaker has produced a masterful history of a poorly understood relationship between Natives and Europeans in
Iroquoia. He has mined sources meticulously and thoroughly. But as a biography, the book has a remarkable literary
quality that allows readers to become intimate with all the characters. Indians and Europeans are stripped of stereotypes
and become complex human beings concerned with their traditions, their contemporaries, and their futures. And the
trajectories of their lives seem to compose a plot line that is irresistible.

The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk
Mystery
David P. Dewar
Canadian Journal of History.
46.2 (Autumn 2011): p406.
COPYRIGHT 2011 University of Toronto Press
http://www.usask.ca/history/cjh/
Full Text:
The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery, by Eric Hinderaker. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard
University Press, 2010. xi, 354 pp. $35.00 US (cloth).
Eric Hinderaker is carving out a career by recasting relationships between Natives and Europeans in the seventeenthand
eighteenth-century North American backcountry. The Two Hendricks continues that effort in two ways. First, it
places Iroquois people at the centre of intercontinental diplomacy during the period of European imperial contests in
North America. And, second, it re-quickens two Mohawk leaders, both named Hendrick by their Christian baptisms.
The two Hendricks, Hinderaker shows, have been conflated by historians into one legendary figure by a combination of
"half remembered anecdotes, sketchy investigation, and imaginative invention." The singular (and false) Hendrick,
thus, "came to represent the enduring legacy of an Indian past for a generation of (nineteenth-century) Americans who
could recover it only in fragments" (p. 9). As a remedy, Hinderaker recovers the histories of two real men and, in the
process, illuminates "the dense web of human entanglements, the imperfect calculations of interest, and the deeply
contingent sequence of events that shaped the contest to control North America" (p. 14).
To correct the legendary Hendrickses, Hinderaker resurrects reality. He argues that Iroquoia was much more complex
than legend suggests and that it is firmly rooted in the inter-cultural relationships among the Iroquois, the Dutch, the
English, and the French. The two Hendricks, one from the seventeenth century and one from the eighteenth, provide
Hinderaker the opportunity to trace and illustrate that complexity and begin to unravel the threads of mythology that
have obscured truths about these Mohawks, their communities, and the world they shared with Europeans when
imperial contests raged in Iroquoia.
Reality for Mohawks in the late 1600s, prior to the first Hendrick's rise to power, meant death and degradation through
"humiliation; intimidation, and reversal of Mohawk traditions" at the hands of French Christian missionaries (p. 24).
The French had exploited the English conquest of the Dutch by co-opting trade among the Iroquois as Dutch trade
goods diminished. This new reality meant that many Mohawks had to make decisions in light of disruption to keep
their communities alive. Many of these decisions sent more and more Mohawks away from their traditional
environments to those more useful for the French than for the natives they came to dominate.
By 1690, The Covenant Chain, and the subsequent growth of alliance with the English, changed Mohawk life, too. But
this time one of the instigators of change was the first Hendrick, named Tejonihokaraw. Albany had become the centre
of Anglo-Native relations in the Great Lakes area. The first Hendrick recognized that in Albany lay "the promise of a
strong ally in their long, grinding conflict with New France and the Great Lakes" (p. 45). But such alliance was not
purely politics. The first Hendrick had accepted baptism in the Dutch Reformed tradition, rejecting French Catholicism.
By using leverage with Protestants, Hinderaker argues, Hendrick wanted to "reconcile Christian and Mohawk identities
rather than reject their Mohawk roots," something upon which the French had insisted (p. 44). Hendrick felt such
continuity could be achieved with England as the Mohawks' allies.
Hinderaker points to the Albany conference of 1701 as a turning point in the first Hendrick's influence among the
Iroquois. Here, the Iroquois agreed to cede a great deal of their western lands to the King of England. But this was not
the one-sided outcome that Hinderaker says most historians recognize. While the Iroquois lost land, the transaction also
encouraged a stronger English presence in Iroquoia to balance the growing influence of France. The balance achieved a
neutrality in Queen Anne's War that resurrected--momentarily--trade relationships while minimizing spiritual and
political "domination" by the European contestants (p. 75). The first Hendrick was at the centre of these events.
Such posturing put Hendrick and other sachems in the good graces of England. And in one of the most celebrated state
visits ever, Hendrick found himself in London, summoned to an audience with Queen Anne. Hinderaker speculates that
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the visit was vindication for Hendrick's long-time loyalty to England in the face of Mohawk reticence. But he also
recognized a new beginning for the first Hendrick. Now, Hendrick would be able to claim mediator status in Iroquoia.
Thus, he was able to cement the alliance with Britain against France that he so treasured, one that would continue until
his death sometime after 1735.
The second Hendrick's life was no less intertwined with British imperial designs. He had been baptized as an infant by
the same Dutch Reformed minister who had baptized the first Hendrick as an adult. But an Anglican mission among the
Mohawk, established in Hendrick Peters Theyanoguin's childhood, became an important influence on his family and
his community. The first Hendrick rose to prominence because of his interaction with Albany's leaders. The second
Hendrick did so first by opposing the power Albany wielded to mold the Mohawks to imperial wishes. By 1745, the
middle-aged second Hendrick recognized danger in the same troubling issues that had concerned the first Hendrick--
mostly continuing dispossession and global war between France and England. Eventually, the second Hendrick would
eclipse the stature of the first and be recognized as the finest Mohawk rhetorician. And, he would come to exploit
fissures between Albany and London to Mohawk advantage.
The second Hendrick recognized the prominent position the fur trade played in relationships between the Iroquois and
the empires. He also recognized the insatiable thirst for land displayed by the British. The second Hendrick told Albany
officials in 1741 that the covenant born of treaties was being compromised and the Mohawk people were afraid of
being scattered and irrelevant. This announcement followed incidents of violence that also concerned Mohawks. One
Mohawk had been beaten for picking an ear of corn on the estate of "a recently arrived Irishman named William
Johnson" (p. 155). The search for justice in this incident brought Hendrick Peters Theyanoguin and William Johnson
together for the first time. But for more than a decade after, their lives would become inseparable.
Such racial tension continued and manifested itself in conspiracy theories. The second Hendrick and other Mohawks
feared that Albany officials wanted them all dead. This was a recurring theme throughout the 1740s. Hendrick, by
turns, saw malicious intent everywhere he looked, except in the character of William Johnson. Johnson persuaded
Hendrick to defend British interests in New York during King George's War through raids on French settlements in
Canada. Hendrick wore in public English clothing that was provided by Johnson. And it was Johnson who convinced
Hendrick that Mohawks were losing power and influence in Iroquoia after King George's War because the French were
concentrating diplomatic efforts farther west, in the Ohio Valley. It was Johnson's frustration with high-stakes New
York politics that caused Hendrick to declare the Covenant Chain broken in 1753. It was negotiation between Hendrick
and Johnson that restored the Covenant Chain so important to British alliance with the Iroquois, a chain first
established in the first Hendrick's era. It was the repaired alliance between Hendrick and Johnson that, literally, rallied
the troops--both Anglo-American and Iroquois--to Hendrick's last battle at Lake George in 1755.
The Two Hendricks will be quite useful for instructors teaching courses on Native America, as well as those teaching
the colonial eras inhabited by both Henricks. Hinderaker provides insight into the social structure of Mohawk
communities as well as detailed explanations about the cultural practices that build and complement that structure.
Hinderaker is clear and concise in his explanations of many Mohawk and Iroquois cultural practices, a feature that
many instructors will appreciate and use in the classroom. But he is also adept at revealing the intricacies of British
imperial politics in New York across 100 years of history. He identifies political alliances that allowed individuals like
George Clinton and William Johnson to rise to prominence. But the names of many who lost the political battles are
resurrected, as well, and their contributions to the development of empire restored.
Hinderaker has produced a masterful history of a poorly understood relationship between Natives and Europeans in
Iroquoia. He has mined sources meticulously and thoroughly. But as a biography, the book has a remarkable literary
quality that allows readers to become intimate with all the characters. Indians and Europeans are stripped of stereotypes
and become complex human beings concerned with their traditions, their contemporaries, and their futures. And the
trajectories of their lives seem to compose a plot line that is irresistible.
David P. Dewar
Angelo State University
Dewar, David P.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Dewar, David P. "The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery." Canadian Journal of History, vol. 46, no. 2,
2011, p. 406+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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QUOTE:
Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall have successfully synthesized the complex world of British backcountry
resettlement in a brief, readable format. They cover the principal events, rationales, and themes of English colonization
in North America from its advent to the American Revolution.
Hinderaker and Mancall attempt a balanced narrative. They
include brief introductions to the indigenous concept of usufruct land ownership to offset the more familiar English
concept, and they include many native historical figures.
he attempt falls short of balanced integration.

At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in
British North America
Gray H. Whaley
Journal of World History.
16.3 (Sept. 2005): p377.
COPYRIGHT 2005 University of Hawaii Press
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu
Full Text:
At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America. By ERIC HINDERAKER and PETER C.
MANCALL. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. 208 pp. $49.95 (cloth); $17.95 (paper).
Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall have successfully synthesized the complex world of British backcountry
resettlement in a brief, readable format. They cover the principal events, rationales, and themes of English colonization
in North America from its advent to the American Revolution. As is now widely accepted, they begin the analysis with
Ireland, Elizabethan England's first colonial "backcountry." The English developed basic beliefs and colonial policies in
Ireland, particularly regarding land seizure, colonizing settlers, and brutally subjugating the Native population, and
exported them to the "backcountry" of North America's Atlantic coast. The backcountry and the authors' narrative
proceed westward from the tidewater to the headwaters, across the Appalachian Mountains to the continental interior.
The text reflects much recent scholarship, such as favoring the term "borderland" over "frontier." New Western
historians have assailed the Turnerian frontier concept as too white male centered, among other problems, and in
adopting the multicultural approach of "borderlands," Hinderaker and Mancall attempt a balanced narrative. They
include brief introductions to the indigenous concept of usufruct land ownership to offset the more familiar English
concept, and they include many native historical figures. Still, the attempt falls short of balanced integration. Native
beliefs are not well maintained in the subsequent narrative, which focuses on colonization. Moreover, the authors
continue the facile rejection of the term "holocaust" to describe the near annihilation of the native population (p. 15).
No, the Europeans did not intentionally introduce pathogens previously unknown in the Americas, but they did (as
evidenced in this text) consciously exacerbate the effects and make it almost impossible for the stricken native
population to recover from the epidemics, conflicts, and colonization of their lands. "Holocaust" is an ancient word,
applied in many contexts. I find it tiresome and shameful thatWestern historians refuse to apply "holocaust" outside the
context of Hitler's modern murder state as if the Nazis set the bureaucratic parameters for the term's use. Perhaps,
however, the scholarly consensus backs the authors, and it is simply their statement on a contentious and fundamental
issue in the history of backcountry colonization.
Largely, though, if the text has an overarching problem, it lies with overstatement. The authors seem at pains to
centralize the British backcountry of North America in a history in which it was only one constituent part. They were
likely trying to overcome the scholarly slight of the backcountry in favor of the Atlantic seaboard and Europe. They
overplayed their hand. One might read this text and think, for example, that the twin defeats of George Washington and
Edward Braddock in the Ohio Country, 1754-1755, singularly launched the global Seven Years War. What of Prussia's
invasion of Saxony in 1756 and the European leagues that divided the continental powers and eventually spread their
imperial clash to India, the Philippines, and the Caribbean? French-British competition in the North American
backcountry was a significant factor in that world-shaping war and should be restored within its proper context. Also,
focusing on the subject, in this case the backcountry, is obviously paramount, but excluding other crucial factors is
misleading at best. If, to paraphrase one historian, any good new idea is worth an overstatement, then the authors
needed to have offered something more than a general synthesis of established scholarship to justify the exaggeration of
the role of the North American backcountry.
Still, these qualms do not undermine the general usefulness and successes of the text. Lecturers should find it an
effective reference and a guide to presenting seemingly disconnected events in British backcountry colonization.
Similarly, I would recommend it for an intermediate undergraduate readings course or as a brief text for graduate
students to read alongside an article or two with competing visions on key points. As always, in a seminar, the weaker
points of the narrative and analysis can be quite valuable in stimulating discussion.
GRAY H. WHALEY
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Western Michigan University
Whaley, Gray H.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Whaley, Gray H. "At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America." Journal of World History, vol.
16, no. 3, 2005, p. 377+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA138862452&it=r&asid=fed0da5f2d125b8345b84be25424787f.
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QUOTE:
excellent synthesis of recent scholarship on the
British North American backcountry,
At the Edge of Empire answers the need for a succinct synthetic treatment of the North American backcountry. Its
clarity, sophistication, breadth, depth, and concision will serve the needs of scholars and students alike.

At the Edge of Empire: the Backcountry in
British North America
Ricardo A. Herrera
Canadian Journal of History.
39.3 (Dec. 2004): p631.
COPYRIGHT 2004 University of Toronto Press
http://www.usask.ca/history/cjh/
Full Text:
At the Edge Empire: The Backcountry in British North America, by Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall. Baltimore,
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. ix, 210 pp. $49.95 US (cloth), $17.95 US (paper).
Eric Hinderaker's and Peter C. Mancall's At the Edge of Empire is an excellent synthesis of recent scholarship on the
British North American backcountry, a "realm in which the ordinary rules of English governance and behavior did not
apply" (p. 4). The authors trace the development of the backcountry from the early stages of English colonization
through the first year of the American War for Independence, when, as they note, the first British empire "collapsed
under the weight of a backcountry grown too large and complicated to administer of control" (p. 5). Britain's very
success in the Great War for Empire proved its undoing. The story that emerges is one of a contested and ever-shifting
landscape that advanced, receded, and adjusted in relation to patterns of colonial settlement and incorporation. The
backcountry's very fluidity, its distance and unsettled nature in relation to the metropolis, but particularly in relation to
the settled imperial periphery, was one of its hallmarks, thus making it a periphery of the periphery--a hinterland that
was difficult for colonial officials to understand or rule. For its diverse peoples, however, the backcountry was a place
of opportunity and challenge, "an ambiguous zone, neither Indian country nor yet fully incorporated into the ambit of
British governance and Anglo-American control" (p. 179). At the heart of this work, Hinderaker and Mancall see a
story of European and Indian "struggle, of competing claims to an alluring land" (p. 7).
The authors begin with a brief foray into Sir Humphrey Gilbert's failed attempt at terrorizing the Irish into submission.
Despite Gilbert's failure, his venture set the patterns and perceptions that would govern and justify so much of English
colonization including an often singular ruthlessness in subduing native peoples, but also a hopefulness that a new and
better world might be created out of perceived savagery and disorder. The authors take care to note that, throughout the
long life of Britain's successive backcountries and the varying circumstances and contexts of imperial growth, the
waves of expansion and the frontier peoples' experiences took place within larger discernable patterns of contact,
conflict, accommodation, and eventual incorporation within the metropolitan or peripheral spheres.
At the Edge of Empire answers the need for a succinct synthetic treatment of the North American backcountry. Its
clarity, sophistication, breadth, depth, and concision will serve the needs of scholars and students alike.
Ricardo A. Herrera
Mount Union College, Alliance Ohio
Herrera, Ricardo A.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Herrera, Ricardo A. "At the Edge of Empire: the Backcountry in British North America." Canadian Journal of History,
vol. 39, no. 3, 2004, p. 631. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA130282570&it=r&asid=772a53b6c2a8c5d2b5618fd6921a145f.
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QUOTE:
Hinderaker
argues that there were three types of empires. Elusive Empires provides a good overview of the Ohio Valley's political and economic history for the eighteenth
century. It is clear, well-organized, and persuasive, and will be useful to readers interested in midwestern, frontier, early
American, and Native American history.
Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the
Ohio Valley, 1673-1800
Lucy Eldersveld Murphy
The Historian.
62.1 (Fall 1999): p154.
COPYRIGHT 1999 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc.
Full Text:
Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800. By Eric Hinderaker. (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997. Pp. xv, 299. $49.95.)
This comparative study of colonialism in the Ohio Valley examines the experiences of Indians, French, and British
colonists, as well as settlers from the United States, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Defining the
region to include the area from Pennsylvania in the east to the Illinois country's Mississippi border, Eric Hinderaker
argues that there were three types of empires. Driven by mercantilist colonial policies that were designed to benefit the
parent country, the French and British each implemented in the Midwest both of the first two types: empires of
commerce" created by the fur trade, and "empires of land," in which settlement was the main objective. The American
Revolution, according to the author, created a third--and quite different--type of empire, one that he calls an "empire of
liberty."
In the book's early chapters, Elusive Empires does a commendable job of outlining the experiences and migrations of
Indians in the protohistoric and early contact periods, differentiating between people with long residence in the region
and those who were pushed into the area from the east due to conflicts with Euro-American and Indian neighbors. In
addition, the book discusses the ways that contact with traders and missionaries influenced native communities'
location, ethnic composition, and leadership.
In discussing ?he "Empires of Land," Hinderaker compares the colonial settlements of the English in Pennsylvania with
those of the French in Illinois. While both were based to some extent on "retro-feudal fantasies of vast landed estates"
as well as "proto-modern visions of commercial exploitation and development," low rates of immigration permitted
cultural syncretism in the French colony, while Pennsylvania's early peaceful adaptations were overwhelmed by white
frontier people's insatiable land hunger (79). British officials' failure to control their own people and their ill-advised
policies regarding Indian diplomacy fostered what Hinderaker calls "a culture of Indian-hating" in frontier regions that
would persist after the Revolution (157).
The traditional models of empire had been based on centralized policy-making and elite government, but these,
Hinderaker argues, were replaced during and after the American Revolution by "a new era of imperial development ...
in which individuals exercised a new kind of authority and legitimacy" (186, emphasis added). The new territorial
system, especially the Northwest Ordinance, legitimized dispossession of the Indians, while new conceptions of
citizenship privileged white men, heightening racial divisions. Essentially, Western settlers and United States national
leaders were unified by their common opposition to the Ohio Indians. For Hinderaker, although the Revolution's
individualistic impulses could "unleash the creative energies of ordinary people," its legacies for the Ohio valley were
"decentralized, atomized political authority and deeper, sharper lines of racial separation and hatred" (186).
Elusive Empires provides a good overview of the Ohio Valley's political and economic history for the eighteenth
century. It is clear, well-organized, and persuasive, and will be useful to readers interested in midwestern, frontier, early
American, and Native American history.
Lucy Eldersveld Murphy
Newberry Library
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Murphy, Lucy Eldersveld. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." The Historian,
vol. 62, no. 1, 1999, p. 154. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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QUOTE:
This is the story of the dispossession and flight
of Native Americans, from English colonists in Pennsylvania early in the eighteenth century, and late in the century
from the Euroamericans in the Ohio River Valley.
This study is tangential to Michigan history, but nonetheless useful. The focus on territories to the south of what later
became Michigan provides background.

Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the
Ohio Valley, 1673-1800. (Book Reviews)
Arthur J. Worrall
Michigan Historical Review.
25.2 (Fall 1999): p137.
COPYRIGHT 1999 Clarke Historical Library
http://www.lib.cmich.edu/clarke/mhr.htm
Full Text:
Eric Hinderaker. Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997. Pp. 299. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Cloth, $49.95.
Eric Hinderaker has given the historical community a useful and welcome survey of the effects of European and
American inroads on the established cultures of the Ohio River Valley. He sets out three phases of empire in this
region: the first a trading empire in which French and British competed for trade; the second in which the French,
British, and Indians competed for territorial control, with the British winning at least in theory; and the third of liberty
at the time of the War of Independence and after in which Americans took territorial control away from the Indians,
continuing that long saga that featured their loss of culture, land, and independence from the beginning of European
settlement. Liberty was for those who wielded power to the east or those who began to settle the region late in the
century, not the Indians.
Derived substantially from the work of other scholars and his own research in primary sources, Hinderaker's useful
synthesis keeps the focus on the Ohio Valley, especially to the north of the Ohio River. While the imperial connection is
scarcely to be found, that is a useful corrective to earlier studies that essentially omitted coverage of the valley and its
inhabitants while focusing on Atlantic empires. Brought to prominence by Hinderaker is the British and French
competition for trade with the Indians and the ultimately devastating impact that the British and then the American
victories in eighteenth-century conflicts had on the original inhabitants. This is the story of the dispossession and flight
of Native Americans, from English colonists in Pennsylvania early in the eighteenth century, and late in the century
from the Euroamericans in the Ohio River Valley.
This study is tangential to Michigan history, but nonetheless useful. The focus on territories to the south of what later
became Michigan provides background. It will be for others to set out later details for Michigan history.
Arthur J. Worrall
Colorado State University
Worrall, Arthur J.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Worrall, Arthur J. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800. (Book Reviews)."
Michigan Historical Review, vol. 25, no. 2, 1999, p. 137+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA80804100&it=r&asid=fd9fce96edffb4f7c18ea668a03c65c6.
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QUOTE:
Elusive Empires is a fine addition to the growing number of studies that deal with intercultural exchange and trade in
the colonial period. It should be included in any course dealing with Native American or early American history.

Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the
Ohio Valley, 1673-1800
PAULA SHERMAN
The American Indian Quarterly.
22.4 (Fall 1998): p547.
COPYRIGHT 1998 University of Nebraska Press
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/
Full Text:
Eric Hinderaker. Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1997. Preface + 270 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $49.95.
As the title of this work suggests, empire in the Ohio Valley from the late seventeenth century to 1800 was for the most
part elusive; the French and British tried to exert control over their vast territorial conquests but could never quite bring
it about. Americans achieved it only through their successful revolution.
Hinderaker treats empires as process rather than structure. Moreover, he argues that the Ohio Valley was largely shaped
by local policy, and not simply the policy directives originating in London, Paris, Philadelphia, or Washington. French,
British, and American colonial officials constructed their empires on three distinct fronts: commerce, land, and liberty.
In the hands of the French and British, theories about commerce and land would shape the Americas into a remote
periphery whose resources would fuel Europe's economic center. In the hands of the Americans, an empire of liberty
appeared in the midst of their revolution, differing drastically in scope and magnitude from the other models.
Hinderaker uses the Ohio Valley as an example of how and why French and British plans ultimately failed, while the
Americans' succeeded. Hinderaker's use of core and periphery is in step with the world system theory proposed by
Immanuel Wallerstein, in which core powers exist and grow more powerful by exporting raw resources from peripheral
outposts. In order for this system to function properly, the core must retain control of all political and economic
considerations in the periphery. For the British and French, who sought empires of commerce and lands, controlling
their colonial outposts on the American continent became an impossible job.
One of the reasons that it became impossible had to do with local Native people. Trade, for example, was not simply an
economic affair; it was negotiated between local officials and indigenous leaders. Colonial assumptions
notwithstanding, many Native people had very strict social roles attached to trade, including the giving of presents on a
lavish scale, that imperial powers found very difficult to accept or maintain. Interpreted by Europeans as bribes, such
gifts were in fact diplomatic protocols. Gifts were often redistributed in the community and became a major channel for
redistributing social and economic power. Such practices made it difficult for London and Paris to control the shape or
design of expanding trade.
To remedy the problem, imperial administrators devised schemes by which imperial rights to resources would be
secured in land. Land had always been of great value in Europe and had become a means of payment in the colonies.
But land valuation differed drastically from British to French settlements. The French could not attract enough settlers
to Canada, where land value remained low. Britain, on the other hand, absorbed so many settlers into its colonies that
many settlers with no land or possibility of owning property squatted on and appropriated border lands, including tracts
claimed by Natives. Though colonial officials made some efforts to run squatters off Indian lands, many stayed, or
returned when soldiers left.
How did Americans achieve dominance? The creation of an empire of liberty was pushed forward by thousands of
land-hungry settlers; revolutionary governments at both the state and confederation level chose to follow their lead (p.
186). As a result, the revolution reshaped the society of the Ohio Valley. In the midst of the American Revolution, an
American identity emerged, Hinderaker argues, that held a commitment to rapid expansion and hatred of Indian people.
Hinderaker's look at the complex interchange of ideas and interactions in the Ohio Valley echoes Richard White's
exceptional study of the middle ground. Native people retain a primary role and have agency in their dealings with
Europeans. The dispossession of indigenous people can be traced back to the very beginnings of European invasion,
but it was in the midst of the turmoil of the American Revolution that indigenous peoples in the Ohio Valley were
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perceived as the perfect villains to pull White Americans together. The new American nation valorized economic
opportunity and political power for White men, while it had neither the strength nor the will to challenge its citizens'
desire to exploit nonwhites in their pursuit of opportunity and power (p. 270).
Elusive Empires is a fine addition to the growing number of studies that deal with intercultural exchange and trade in
the colonial period. It should be included in any course dealing with Native American or early American history.
PAULA SHERMAN, University of Connecticut
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
SHERMAN, PAULA. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." The American
Indian Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 4, 1998, p. 547. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA59116149&it=r&asid=db7ccbebf5f0ab39e4119c89b677ff2d.
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QUOTE:
Intriguingly, Hinderaker often deals in wide sweeps of geography - from Quebec to Pennsylvania, Kentucky, St. Louis,
Karkaris, and New Orleans. His analysis of the various cultures is fascinating.

Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the
Ohio Valley, 1673-1800
Lee Soltow
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History.
29.1 (Summer 1998): p131.
COPYRIGHT 1998 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/
Full Text:
By Eric Hinderaker (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997) 299 pp. $49.95
The author paints a picture of settlement conditions in the wide regions bordering the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. He
highlights the interplay between American Indians and whites in adapting to life on these wide expanses of land. Such
activity is often seen as that of "empire" builders, a striving for hegemony on the part of both the British and French,
followed by redirection on the part of the United States government during the period before 1800.
Hinderaker's sources of information are largely manuscript papers, diaries, maps, governmental reports, and a welldocumented
array of works that deal with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century intellectual thought and government
direction. Disappointingly, he cites few census counts, statistical indices of development, or works by economic
historians and anthropologists. He highlights skirmishes and battles and provides descriptions of movements and
migrations among both Indian tribes and white ethnic groups. The trade in furs, grains, and whiskey in Ohio and along
its rivers is deemed of utmost importance as a contrast to the activity of empire seekers. Yet, the quantitative impact of
trade versus that of settlement is difficult to judge, given the approach of this author.
In one chronological classification, the author considers four periods of development, or change, in the Ohio Valley:
1673-1731, early occupation; 1732-1765, trade and dispersal; 1766-1783, wars and dislocation; and 1784-1800,
displacement and reoccupation. These periods are buttressed by maps giving the locations of villages, forts, and
Euroamerican settlements, as well as traces of the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and other routes. Such a
framework makes one wish for such measures as counts of village populations, counts of acres cultivated, and details of
the daily activities of Indians and Euroamericans as they faced each other. There are, however, interesting maps
throughout the volume that give insightful glimpses of this past history. The first shows Indian villages and their
warrior populations on the Illinois River - thirteen villages and 4,800 individuals. A chart shows values (pounds) of fur
and skin exports from Pennsylvania to London during the period, 1700-1758.
Hinderaker stresses Ohio Valley trade between Native Americans, the French, and the English in his initial two
chapters, "Networks of Trade" and "Communities of Exchange." Looking through the eyes of French missionaries after
1650, he sees the trade between Europeans and Americans as democratizing the tribes, and particularly raising the
status level of the young relative to their elders. He contrasts trade development to what might take place in a "pure"
mercantile empire with garrisoned ports, plantations, and inland trading posts. The ample available land areas could
certainly have led to large estates, but the land was too vast to control.
The author elaborates on the consequences of the eighteenth-century population explosion in Pennsylvania as opposed
to the settlement weakness in the Ohio Valley and Canada. Greater specification might have been achieved using
censuses of corn, cattle, and acreage during the years from 1790 to 1803 for each family in Missouri as measures of
inequality. The comprehensive 1798 statistics collected by Oliver Wolcott dealing with property holdings and dwelling
values of each settler in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee allow evaluation of the extent of settlement on the
Ohio.(1) The census of Ohio settlement in 1800 specifies populations.
Intriguingly, Hinderaker often deals in wide sweeps of geography - from Quebec to Pennsylvania, Kentucky, St. Louis,
Karkaris, and New Orleans. His analysis of the various cultures is fascinating.
1 Wolcott's data have been used by economic historians. See Robert E. Gallman, "American Economic Growth before
the Civil War: The Testimony of the Capital Stock Estimates," in Robert E. Gallman and John Joseph Wallis (eds.),
American Economic Growth and Standards of Living before the Civil War (Chicago, 1992); Soltow, Distribution of
Wealth and Income in the United States in 1798 (Pittsburgh, 1989).
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Lee Soltow Ohio University
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Soltow, Lee. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, vol. 29, no. 1, 1998, p. 131+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA20913028&it=r&asid=cbed739cd565d6d4f1801e8bf881baa7.
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QUOTE:
thoughtful and well-written synthesis
this engaging book appreciably advances our understanding of the confrontation between
Amerindians and Euroamerican settlers as the United States framed their independence.
Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the
Ohio Valley, 1673-1800
Ian K. Steele
Canadian Journal of History.
33.1 (Apr. 1998): p129.
COPYRIGHT 1998 University of Toronto Press
http://www.usask.ca/history/cjh/
Full Text:
Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800, by Eric Hinderaker. New York, Cambridge
University Press, 1997. xv, 299 pp. $49.95 U.S.
This thoughtful and well-written synthesis postulates three successive types of empire in the Ohio Valley: those of
commerce, land, and Reviewing archeological findings and early travel accounts, Hinderaker confirms that the valley's
changing Amerindian inhabitants had usually preferred to live in decentralized villages. However, the Iroquois
invasions of the 1680s, which are not considered among the "elusive empires," prompted defensive multitribal
settlements around French trading posts. The "empires of commerce" are French and English fur trades convincingly
described as having more impact on Amerindians than Richard White allows in The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires,
and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (1991). The mixed and extended villages of White's "middle
ground" can be seen as a phase in the cycles of short-range migration.
Tribal movements and alliances are mapped well, utilizing early modern reporters' concern with specifying tribal
identities. However, the author minimizes tribal cultural differences, and presumes a homogeneity that is seldom
questioned or analysed. Highlights of studies on Amerindians elsewhere, especially the Iroquois, are occasionally
substituted for unavailable evidence about Ohio Valley Algonquians. It may be "entirely possible" that the central
American demographic disaster also hit the Ohio Valley (p. 8). It may be "plausible" that the Peoria responded to
Christianity like Ramon Gutierrez indicates the Pueblo did (p. 59). It may even be possible that Calvin Martin's much
disputed clam concerning Micmac hunters' changing relationship to game was shared by all "Eastern woodland
Indians" (p. 67). However, it may be that tribal differences, in language, myth, and custom, affected responses to the
challenges of these alien empires. Hinderaker's sensitive synthesis of what we know reminds us of what we still need to
learn.
"Empires of Land" are illustrated with an intriguing comparison between the English Susquehanna Valley and French
Kaskaskia. Those who hold that the French officially embraced Amerindians will find disturbing contrary evidence in
the prohibition of mixed marriages in Kaskaskia from 1735, and in the exclusion of Amerindian widows from legally
inheriting hinds from their French husbands. The Pennsylvanian example shows that the expected contest between
traders (who needed Amerindians) and "Euroamerican" farmers (who did not) faded to materialize. Traders like the
deceptive George Croghan became land speculators with great ease. For Hinderaker, the "empire of land" lasted as long
as any white imperial government attempted to restrain white settlers. He is anxious to postpone the start of the settler
invasion of the Ohio to the eve of the American Revolution. He minimizes "Pontiac's War" as a protest against settler
invasion already underway, and ignores the formal British government withdrawal from these frontiers in 1768. This
withdrawal was the first of many times a British government finally refused to continue fighting aboriginal peoples
provoked by unrelenting settler fraud and atrocity.
"Empire of liberty," a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson late in 1780 and used here without apparent irony, involves
congressional support for the usurping settlers who were flooding in to steal Amerindian land as the revolution
commenced. What had been a euphemism for lawless invasion is treated as an ideological corollary of the revolution,
and one that ensured an intensified racial definition of the new republic's citizen. Rather like the Algonquians of a
century earlier, white settlers oscillated between "forting up" for Amerindian war, and scattering to develop their
farmsteads.
Neither Thomas Abernethy's Western Lands and the American Revolution (1937) nor Colin Calloway's The American
Revolution in Indian Country (1995) are listed in Hinderaker's otherwise useful bibliography. Abernethy's Turnerian
explanation for the place of the Ohio in the coming of the American Revolution may be dated and myopic, but it is still
useful. Calloway's case studies of a range of Amerindian responses to the revolution indicate ubiquitous American
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aggression that overwhelmed not only Amerindian enemies, but also neutrals and allies. This assault on Amerindians
was not new, but it was an indiscriminate acceleration of "empires of land," blessed opportunistically by an insecure
new rebel government entirely unable to control Euroamerican frontiersmen. Hinderaker's conclusion that "The United
States succeeded where France and Britain failed" (p. 268) presumes a similarity of government objectives that this
study has tried hard to disprove.
Although Hinderaker has not equalled, challenged, or replaced White's monograph, he has offered numerous valuable
insights and perspectives, and has provoked worthwhile questions on subjects as varied as the archeology and
ethnography of the Illinois, the uneven success of the French missionaries, and the transmutation of those American
loyalists who fled to the Ohio Valley just in time to become participants in a race war. Although its general argument is
Dot particularly persuasive, this engaging book appreciably advances our understanding of the confrontation between
Amerindians and Euroamerican settlers as the United States framed their independence.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Steele, Ian K. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." Canadian Journal of
History, vol. 33, no. 1, 1998, p. 129+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA20856372&it=r&asid=eac168f2243dddfd9b9834a752522c07.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A20856372

Holland, Jessica. "Hinderaker, Eric. Boston's Massacre." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 89+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479301281&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. "Boston's Massacre." Publishers Weekly, 30 Jan. 2017, p. 191+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480195228&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. "Hinderaker, Eric: BOSTON'S MASSACRE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475357408&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Burch, John. "Hinderaker, Eric. The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery." Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2009, p. 72. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA211439873&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Dewar, David P. "The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery." Canadian Journal of History, vol. 46, no. 2, 2011, p. 406+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA274585441&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Whaley, Gray H. "At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America." Journal of World History, vol. 16, no. 3, 2005, p. 377+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA138862452&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Herrera, Ricardo A. "At the Edge of Empire: the Backcountry in British North America." Canadian Journal of History, vol. 39, no. 3, 2004, p. 631. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA130282570&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Murphy, Lucy Eldersveld. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." The Historian, vol. 62, no. 1, 1999, p. 154. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA57874174&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Worrall, Arthur J. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800. (Book Reviews)." Michigan Historical Review, vol. 25, no. 2, 1999, p. 137+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA80804100&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. SHERMAN, PAULA. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 4, 1998, p. 547. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA59116149&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Soltow, Lee. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 29, no. 1, 1998, p. 131+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA20913028&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017. Steele, Ian K. "Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800." Canadian Journal of History, vol. 33, no. 1, 1998, p. 129+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA20856372&it=r. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
  • Wall Street Journal Online
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-blood-flows-on-king-street-1489171375

    Word count: 217

    QUOTE:
    Fascinating…Hinderaker’s meticulous research shows that the Boston Massacre was contested from the beginning…The Boston Massacre’s contested meanings have plenty to tell us about America’s identity, past and present
    The Blood Flows on King Street
    What actually happened in Boston on that night 246 years ago? Mark Spencer reviews “Boston’s Massacre” by Eric Hinderaker.
    By Mark Spencer
    Updated March 10, 2017 4:46 p.m. ET
    Boston, March 5, 1770—a crisp, clear night. Suddenly, around 9 p.m., shots ring out disturbing the silence. Capt. Thomas Preston and a detachment of British troops posted outside the Customs House on King Street have fired their muskets into a civilian crowd. Three colonists lie dead on the cobblestones. Several others are maimed; two, fatally. Soon, Paul Revere’s hastily produced engraving captures the “Bloody Massacre,” sending shock waves across the colonies. What had been an imperial disagreement over taxation—debated in newspapers and pamphlets—is transformed into an emotionally charged conflict one step from...

    TO READ THE FULL STORY
    Fascinating…Hinderaker’s meticulous research shows that the Boston Massacre was contested from the beginning…The Boston Massacre’s contested meanings have plenty to tell us about America’s identity, past and present. (Mark Spencer Wall Street Journal 2017-03-10)