Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America

University of Chicago historian Kruer debuts with an intriguing if somewhat convoluted study of the role the Susquehannock nation played “in a spasm of conflict that washed over eastern North America” between 1675 and 1685. Centered in the lower Susquehanna Valley in present-day Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the Susquehannock nation grew dramatically in size and influence between 1608, when tribal leaders first encountered European settlers, and the early 1670s. But a “tangle of suspicion, fear, and wrath” disrupted their vast web of alliances and led to clashes with the colonists and other tribes. By June 1767, Kruer notes, the nation had broken up into “a multitude of autonomous bands” that battled colonists up and down the East Coast. Kruer spotlights the story of Jacob Young, the husband of a Susquehannock woman and a member of the “colonial elite” in Maryland who was accused of treason, arrested, threatened with execution, and expelled from the colony after the Susquehannock vowed to avenge his death by killing 500 settlers. Kruer’s jumbled narrative is difficult to follow at times, and he stretches his point too far by suggesting that the Susquehannock were solely responsible for a “revolution in Anglo-Indian affairs.” Still, this is an eye-opening account of an obscure chapter in colonial American history. Illus. (Dec.)