Themes: Interdependence, Vast Early America

Geographical Scope: Cherokee lands (in current Kentucky & Tennessee), Aleutian Islands, Utah, San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area, Hudson's Bay, Black Hills, Havana, Hawaii

Chronological Scope: 1760s-1770s

Thesis: Saunt leaves his thesis open to interpretation, but by implication he firmly pushes against both the tendency to view Early America as a focus on the thirteen colonies or even a strictly Atlantic lens. Instead, he imbues multiple narratives with what Karin Wulf dubs "Vast Early America," using the American Revolution as a case study. In fact, the American Revolution as we know it is reduced to a sidebar to anchor us in time, but otherwise is almost wholly ignored, instead showing how the geographical areas above were changing in key way during the revolutionary period. Saunt also offers a subtle pushback against dependency theory in the second part of his book, showing how Algonquins effectively whittled the resources of Hudson Bay Company traders,

Major/Sub-Arguments:

- By looking at the way colonizers wrote and mapped, it is clear many had little sense of what lay West.
- Russian expansion into Alaska as they used Aleutian forced labor to procure otter pelts concerned Spanish missionaries, who somewhat exaggerated the case for the creation of San Diego in part due to inaccurate mapping.
- More ignorance about the terrain contributed to problems in supplying missions, especially in San Francisco.
- However, many of these failures would end up shaping the maps of the future, such as the colossal failure the Spanish to link its concerns in Utah with those of the West Coast; their round-a-bout journey back to Utah, however, mapped a great deal of terrain.
- Beavers are important ecological players, judging by their presence or absence in an ecosystem.
- When Native groups, for example the Osage or the Creek Nations, developed economic systems around access to European goods, they leveraged their positions. For example, Creek Indians continued to shuttle back and forth between Havana and the mainland in order to pressure Spanish officials into trade and military alliances. This was effective because the sugar industry had made the Spanish dependent on imported provisions, many of which Creeks could supply, and Creek taste for the illegal aguardiente made smuggling an option. (204)

Method and Sources: Continental viewpoint (vs. Atlantic). Examines changes around 1776 in different places in what is now the U.S. Very interesting ecological sources on the beaver; otherwise letters, journals, manuscripts, proclamations, diaries, biographies, autobiographies.

Major Questions: What major changes are taking place during the American Revolution besides on the easter seaboard?

Connections/Historiography: This could be tied to Daniel Richter’s Facing East, in that it takes a more native-centric approach by putting native communities in the foreground and at times juxtaposing their points of view with settlers. Alan Taylor’s American Colonies is also similar in its continental approach. Bill Cronon’s Changes in the Land and subsequent ecological work have their echo here.

How I might use this: This is a fascinating resource that disorients the reader accustomed to thinking about the American Revolution as an all-encompassing event. I would probably use this in concert with Saunt's work on mapping Early America, which would be useful for students to know how just how many people on the continent might have heard only the faintest echo, or nothing at all of the fight in the East. It goes beyond simply upsetting a geographical myth--it suggests we should review our chronological lens as well--what do we mean by Early America.