Beyond Conquest

Book excerpt: By focusing on the complex cultural and political facets of Native resistance to encroachment on reservation lands during the eighteenth century in southern New England, Beyond Conquest reconceptualizes indigenous histories and debates over Native land rights. Beyond Conquest demonstrates how the current Euroamerican scrutiny and denial of local Indian identities is a practice with a long history in southern New England, one linked to colonial notions of cultural-and ultimately "racial"--Illegitimacy that emerged in the context of eighteenth-century disputes regarding Native land rights.