Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America

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Virginia DeJohn Anderson (Associate Professor of History, Associate Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder)

Creatures of Empire

How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America

Virginia DeJohn Anderson (Associate Professor of History, Associate Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder)

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English

Oxford University Press Inc
10 April 2006

History of the Americas; Early modern history: c 1450 to c 1700; Animals & society; Farm & working animals

When we think of the key figures of early American history, we think of explorers, or pilgrims, or Native Americans--not cattle, or goats, or swine. But as Virginia DeJohn Anderson reveals in this brilliantly original account of colonists in New England and the Chesapeake region, livestock played a vitally important role in the settling of the New World.

Livestock, Anderson writes, were a central factor in the cultural clash between colonists and Indians as well as a driving force in the expansion west. By bringing livestock across the Atlantic, colonists believed that they provided the means to realize America's potential. It was thought that if the Native Americans learned to keep livestock as well, they would be that much closer to assimilating the colonists' culture, especially their Christian faith. But colonists failed to anticipate the problems that would arise as Indians began encountering free-ranging livestock at almost every turn, often trespassing in their cornfields.

Moreover, when growing populations and an expansive style of husbandry required far more space than they had expected, colonists could see no alternative but to appropriate Indian land. This created tensions that reached the boiling point with King Philip's War and Bacon's Rebellion. And it established a pattern that would repeat time and again over the next two centuries.

A stunning account that presents our history in a truly new light, Creatures of Empire restores a vital element of our past, illuminating one of the great forces of colonization and the expansion westward.

By: Virginia DeJohn Anderson (Associate Professor of History Associate Professor of History University of Colorado Boulder)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 476g
ISBN: 9780195304466
ISBN 10: 0195304462
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 10 April 2006
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Virginia DeJohn Anderson is Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the author of New England's Generation and co-author (with David Goldfield, et al.) of The American Journey: A History of the United States.

Reviews for Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America

Anderson is highly successful in presenting the transformation of Early America from both the native and English sides ... she has produced a rare instance of a book that can make us look again at aspects of the historical landscape which have long been taken for granted. Francis Bremer, Times Literary Supplement