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Abraham in Arms : War and Gender in Colonial New England / Ann M. Little.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Early American StudiesPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©2007Description: 1 online resource (272 p.) : 17 illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812219616
  • 9780812202649
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 974/.02
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Wars of the Northeastern Borderlands, 1636-1763 -- Introduction: Onward Christian Soldiers, 1678 -- Chapter 1. "You dare not fight, you are all one like women": The Contest of Masculinities in the Seventeenth Century -- Chapter 2. "What are you an Indian or an Englishman?" Cultural Cross-Dressing in the Northeastern Borderlands -- Chapter 3. "Insolent" Squaws and "Unreasonable" Masters: Indian Captivity and Family Life -- Chapter 4. "A jesuit will ruin you Body & Soul!'' Daughters of New England in Canada -- Chapter 5. "Who will be Masters of America The French or the English?" Manhood and Imperial Warfare in the Eighteenth Century -- Epilogue: On the Plains of Abraham -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: In 1678, the Puritan minister Samuel Nowell preached a sermon he called "Abraham in Arms," in which he urged his listeners to remember that "Hence it is no wayes unbecoming a Christian to learn to be a Souldier." The title of Nowell's sermon was well chosen. Abraham of the Old Testament resonated deeply with New England men, as he embodied the ideal of the householder-patriarch, at once obedient to God and the unquestioned leader of his family and his people in war and peace. Yet enemies challenged Abraham's authority in New England: Indians threatened the safety of his household, subordinates in his own family threatened his status, and wives and daughters taken into captivity became baptized Catholics, married French or Indian men, and refused to return to New England.In a bold reinterpretation of the years between 1620 and 1763, Ann M. Little reveals how ideas about gender and family life were central to the ways people in colonial New England, and their neighbors in New France and Indian Country, described their experiences in cross-cultural warfare. Little argues that English, French, and Indian people had broadly similar ideas about gender and authority. Because they understood both warfare and political power to be intertwined expressions of manhood, colonial warfare may be understood as a contest of different styles of masculinity. For New England men, what had once been a masculinity based on household headship, Christian piety, and the duty to protect family and faith became one built around the more abstract notions of British nationalism, anti-Catholicism, and soldiering for the Empire.Based on archival research in both French and English sources, court records, captivity narratives, and the private correspondence of ministers and war officials, Abraham in Arms reconstructs colonial New England as a frontier borderland in which religious, cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries were permeable, fragile, and contested by Europeans and Indians alike.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812202649

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Wars of the Northeastern Borderlands, 1636-1763 -- Introduction: Onward Christian Soldiers, 1678 -- Chapter 1. "You dare not fight, you are all one like women": The Contest of Masculinities in the Seventeenth Century -- Chapter 2. "What are you an Indian or an Englishman?" Cultural Cross-Dressing in the Northeastern Borderlands -- Chapter 3. "Insolent" Squaws and "Unreasonable" Masters: Indian Captivity and Family Life -- Chapter 4. "A jesuit will ruin you Body & Soul!'' Daughters of New England in Canada -- Chapter 5. "Who will be Masters of America The French or the English?" Manhood and Imperial Warfare in the Eighteenth Century -- Epilogue: On the Plains of Abraham -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In 1678, the Puritan minister Samuel Nowell preached a sermon he called "Abraham in Arms," in which he urged his listeners to remember that "Hence it is no wayes unbecoming a Christian to learn to be a Souldier." The title of Nowell's sermon was well chosen. Abraham of the Old Testament resonated deeply with New England men, as he embodied the ideal of the householder-patriarch, at once obedient to God and the unquestioned leader of his family and his people in war and peace. Yet enemies challenged Abraham's authority in New England: Indians threatened the safety of his household, subordinates in his own family threatened his status, and wives and daughters taken into captivity became baptized Catholics, married French or Indian men, and refused to return to New England.In a bold reinterpretation of the years between 1620 and 1763, Ann M. Little reveals how ideas about gender and family life were central to the ways people in colonial New England, and their neighbors in New France and Indian Country, described their experiences in cross-cultural warfare. Little argues that English, French, and Indian people had broadly similar ideas about gender and authority. Because they understood both warfare and political power to be intertwined expressions of manhood, colonial warfare may be understood as a contest of different styles of masculinity. For New England men, what had once been a masculinity based on household headship, Christian piety, and the duty to protect family and faith became one built around the more abstract notions of British nationalism, anti-Catholicism, and soldiering for the Empire.Based on archival research in both French and English sources, court records, captivity narratives, and the private correspondence of ministers and war officials, Abraham in Arms reconstructs colonial New England as a frontier borderland in which religious, cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries were permeable, fragile, and contested by Europeans and Indians alike.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2022)