In 1668 Sarah Ahhaton, a married Native American woman of the
Massachusetts Bay town of Punkapoag, confessed in an English court
to having committed adultery. For this crime she was tried, found
guilty, and publicly whipped and shamed.
These events, recorded in the court documents of colonial
Massachusetts, may appear unexceptional; in fact, they reflect a
rapidly changing world. Native American marital relations and
domestic lives were anathema to English Christians: elite men
frequently took more than one wife, while ordinary people could
dissolve their marriages and take new partners with relative ease.
Native marriage did not necessarily involve cohabitation, the
formation of a new household, or mutual dependence for subsistence.
Couples who wished to separate did so without social opprobrium,
and when adultery occurred, the blame centered not on the "fallen"
woman but on the interloping man. Over time, such practices
changed, but the emergence of new types of "Indian marriage"
enabled the legal, social, and cultural survival of New England's
native peoples.
The complex interplay between colonial power and native practice
is treated with subtlety and wisdom in Colonial Intimacies. Ann
Marie Plane uses travel narratives, missionary tracts, and legal
records to reconstruct a previously neglected history.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
