New Worlds for all – Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America: The American Moment

Although many Americans consider the establishment of the colonies as the birth of this country, in fact early America existed long before the arrival of the Europeans. From coast to coast, Native Americans had created enduring cultures, and the subsequent European invasion remade much of the land and society. In New Worlds for All, Colin G. Calloway explores the unique and vibrant new cultures that Indians and Europeans forged together in early America. The journey toward this hybrid society kept Europeans' and Indians' lives tightly entwined: living, working, worshiping, traveling, and trading together--as well as fearing, avoiding, despising, and killing one another. In some areas, settlers lived in Indian towns, eating Indian food. In the Mohawk Valley of New York, Europeans tattooed their faces; Indians drank tea. A unique American identity emerged.

The second edition of New Worlds for All incorporates fifteen years of additional scholarship on Indian-European relations, such as the role of gender, Indian slavery, relationships with African Americans, and new understandings of frontier society.

Praise for the first edition

"Calloway employs lucid prose and captivating examples to remind us that neither Indians nor colonists were a monolithic group . . . The result is a more nuanced appreciation for the complexity of cultural relationships in Colonial America . . . He surveys this complex story with imagination and insight and provides an essential starting point for all those interested in the interaction of Europeans and Indians in early American life."--Christian Science Monitor

"Calloway wants to restore Indian peoples to a national experience from which they have, except as combatants against whites, been largely erased. But more than that, he wants to show how European settlers, as they entered Indian country, became Americans."--American Historical Review

"Through a telling use of quotation and example Calloway demonstrates that history comprises the cumulative experience of countless people."--Journal of American History

"The book presents the best available brief synthesis of current historical scholarship on relations between Indians and Europeans."--Wisconsin Magazine of History