cover image “The Chiefs Now in This City”: Indians and the Urban Frontier in Early America

“The Chiefs Now in This City”: Indians and the Urban Frontier in Early America

Colin Calloway. Oxford Univ, $34.95 (480p) ISBN 978-0-19-754765-6

In this eye-opening history, National Book Award finalist Calloway (The Indian World of George Washington) dispels popular notions about the absence of Indigenous peoples from towns and cities in colonial America. Rather than retreating from urban centers, Calloway reveals, Native Americans frequently moved toward them, exploiting new economic opportunities and facilitating cross-cultural exchanges. Calloway discusses the Indigenous settlements that preceded and coexisted with Albany, Montreal, Philadelphia, and other North American cities, and describes how Natives who became permanent city residents melted into the polyglot and multiracial urban underclass. Chiefs and other high-ranking delegates on diplomatic missions enjoyed lavish dinners and parties thrown in their honor, Calloway notes, but their “admiration of buildings, streets, markets and ships was tempered by doubt about the values, practices, and humanity of the society that constructed them.” Calloway also takes note of the dangers Native visitors faced in cities, including exposure to smallpox and other deadly diseases, and delves into the personalities and negotiating strategies of Native leaders including Delaware chief Teedyuscung and Mohawk statesman Joseph Brant. With an abundance of colorful anecdotes drawn from contemporaneous newspaper accounts and letters, this scholarly yet accessible account will appeal to fans of early American history. (May)