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The essays in the volume, edited by
Kate Fullagar and Michael A. McDonnell, Facing Empire: Indigenous Experiences in a
Revolutionary Age, are "histories of empire with indigenous peoples as the
main subject" (4). (The volume is inspired by Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country, a
Native American centered history of what became the United States east of the
Mississippi River before 1800.) The main purpose of Facing Empire is to explore what the "revolutionary age," the
period from 1750 to 1850, held in store for a variety of indigenous peoples. The
chapters do not pursue large-scale narratives that take on a broader
perspective, but rather they provide a geographically focused approach, locally
grounded studies, and detailed discussions. By emphasizing indigenous agency, the
editors believe, such studies have much to add to the "transnational or global
approaches," which have been published in recent years. They also maintain that
the essays elucidate the indigenous influence on Europeans.
Facing
Empire is to be
commended for its focus on indigenous people and overall global focus, a
perspective that is often neglected in the historiography of the "revolutionary
age," which tends to favor European- or Atlantic-centered perspectives. The
essays demonstrate that indigenous peoples were active players who influenced
and shaped the history of the British Empire. WHC readers will find valuable and refreshing perspectives in the
essays. The book is divided into three parts. The first collection of essays in
the volume, by Bill Gammage, Michael McDonnell,
Rebecca Shumaway, Jennifer Newell, and Sujit Sivasundaram, focus on how
indigenous peoples helped to define the encounter between local populations and
the British Empire. Part II of the book, entitled "Entanglements," with essays
by Colin Calloway, Nicole Ulrich, Tony Ballantyne, and Robert Kenny, shows "the
maturing relations and a variety of entanglements between empire and indigenous
peoples" (15). The essays in Part III, by Kate Fullagar,
Joshua Reid, Justin Brooks, and Elspeth Martini draw out several kinds of
trans-colonial "Connections" that existed between the British Empire and indigenous
peoples.
Despite the volumes many strengths, there
are some limitations that result both from the exploratory nature of the book
and its small case-study approach. I often found myself wondering how different
the "revolutionary age" in the case studies was from other examples of early
modern interactions of European empires with indigenous peoples who actively
shaped cultural encounters and processes of empire building. Facing Empire's "Pathways,"
"Entanglements," and "Connections," are useful concepts, but are these
organizing principles unique to the "revolutionary age?" Did these patterns of
indigenous-European interaction exist only from roughly 1750 to 1850, or could
such interactions be discerned at other times and in different places? How,
then, do they help us rethink the revolutionary era? These are central questions
that could have been explored and problematized further in the introduction, as
this is an issue widely discussed by scholars. For instance, following Howard
Lamar and Leonard Thompson, some historians in the 1980s called the interactions
explored by Facing Empire an "open
frontier." In the 1990s, and following Richard White, several historians referred
to such European indigenous contacts and relations as a "middle ground."
Numerous scholars have applied the terms of "open frontier" and "middle ground"
in a multitude of case studies throughout the early modern period and into the
19th century, work that has added temporal and spatial complexity
and diversity to our understanding of this subject matter. Moreover, in several
places the patterns described above had already broken down before 1750. Regions
such as southern New England, southern African Western Cape, and the Mexican
Highlands had experienced British or other European colonization for longer
periods, a long-term exposure which had weakened indigenous peoples' capacities
to deal with Europeans. A more nuanced exploration of time and place and some
considerations beyond the British Empire, as well as a broader theoretical discussions
of empire in world history in the introduction would have likely provided an even
more careful study of indigenous peoples in a global revolutionary era. These
are issues, queries, and questions that will occupy historians in the future,
and Facing Empire provides a nice
addition to this ongoing and developing discussion.
The queries above are not meant to call
into question the overall quality of the book. The combined case studies in the
volume provide wide-reaching coverage and underscore the trans-colonial connections
of indigenous peoples and the British Empire. The book features an interesting
collection of essays from leading to early career scholars. It is an essential read
for those scholars interested in the history of the British Empire, indigenous
peoples and colonization, and the "Age of Revolution." The book might be of interest
to instructors who teach upper-level undergraduate or graduate seminars related
to these topics.
Christoph
Strobel is
Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He may be
reached at christoph_strobel@uml.edu. |
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