Snowshoe country : an environmental and cultural history of winter in the early American Northeast / Thomas M. Wickman.

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

©2018

xvi, 310 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Snowshoe Country is an environmental and cultural history of winter in the colonial American Northeast, closely examining indigenous and settler knowledge of snow, ice, and life in the cold. Indigenous communities in this region were more knowledgeable about the cold than European newcomers from temperate climates, and English settlers were especially slow to adapt. To keep surviving the winter year after year and decade after decade, English colonists relied on Native assistance, borrowed indigenous winter knowledge, and followed seasonal diplomatic protocols to ensure stable relations with tribal leaders. Thomas M. Wickman explores how fluctuations in winter weather and the halting exchange of winter knowledge both inhibited and faciliated English colonialism from the 1620s to the early 1700s. As their winter survival strategies improved, due to skills and technologies appropriated from Natives, colonial leaders were able to impose a new political ecology in the greater Northeast, projecting year-round authority over indigenous lands.

ebook version :

English

November 14, 2018

Includes bibliographical references and index.

History.