White People, Indians and Highlanders

[marvelredneck]

Yesterday I recieved the book White People, Indians and Highlanders: Tribal Peoples and Colonial Encounters in Scotland and America by Colin G. Calloway in the mail. I ordered it off Amazon after reading about it in a thread last week. I am very excited about delving into it, as it has great personal intrest to me. I'll tell you what I think of it!

[Bugbear]

I don't have that book yet, but I have read through a few other Calloway history books, and have seen him cited or quoted in several other history related books. I very much like his approach to history. Thanks to Todd for suggesting Calloway.

[davidlpope]

Here's a book on a similar topic that I read:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-White-Blac...tt_at_ep_dpi_2

I found it very engaging and informative, particularly when considering the colonial period of Southern US history.

[Riverkilt]

Have read the book. Very thorough. Any book with Robert Griffing's Warriors on the dust jacket has to be good!

[marvelredneck]

Have read the book. Very thorough. Any book with Robert Griffing's Warriors on the dust jacket has to be good!

Exactly! I love the cover. Might order a framed print of it for the living room...

[Sir William]

...Robert Griffing's Warriors ...

I forgot to mention I also have this print. I used to portray a soldier of the 77th Highlanders and I've an interest in the Mohawk, the two figures in the painting. I also like to track so the entire painting has a lot of meaning to me.

[Joe Gondek]

I have a framed copy of the print and love it.
Lord Neslon's gallery carries all of griffings prints


for those that don't know the print

[marvelredneck]

I have a framed copy of the print and love it.

Lucky!

[Nick the DSM]

Lucky!

Agreed.

[Sir William]

Calloway has written a number of books on the American Indian. I've read most of his books and always find them well-written, well-researched, well-reasoned, enlightening, entertaining and worth the time to read. Up to now my favorite is an essay he wrote on the White Indian - colonists who decided to live among the Indians instead of the European settlements.

In this book he does a comparative analysis between the Scottish Highland (and to lesser extent the Lowland Scot) and American Indian cultures, and how they responded to English efforts to conquer and control them. He contends that both the Highland and Indian cultures were similar in many respects, thus both had an appreciation and respect for the other that they did not hold for the English or other Europeans.

He suggests the Highlanders better adapted to English subjugation, not only assimilating into the greater British Empire but carving out particlar niches for themselves by becoming the predominant interactors with the American Indian.

Since I read quite a bit of American frontier history, to include books on the Eastern Woodland Indians, European colonists, Highland soldiers, and traders to the Indians, this book had particular appeal to me. I found his arguments persuasive and in many ways agreeing with my own analysis.

When I go camping next week I think I'll take this book along for a reread.