|
|
|
Book Reviews
| Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, and the First Nations: The Treaties of 1736–62. Edited by Susan Kalter. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. xiv, 453 pp. Illustrations, notes, glossary, index. $45.)
|
|
Between 1736 and 1762, Benjamin Franklin published thirteen treaties made between Pennsylvania and the Six Nations Iroquois and their native allies, including the Lenapes and the Shawnees. At these treaty negotiations, leaders from different cultures gathered to determine vital issues of war and peace, regulate intercultural exchange, and seek justice from one another. William Penn's secretary, James Logan, noted that the 1736 treaty talks in Philadelphia were conducted "in the presence and hearing of some Thousands of our People" (p. 56). Treaty negotiations were public spectacles in an age without many large-scale events. Of enormous importance in the eighteenth century, the treaties were largely forgotten in the nineteenth century, only to be rediscovered in the early twentieth century as a compelling and uniquely American literary form. In 1938, Julian P. Boyd republished the treaties in a single volume with an introduction by Carl Van Doren. According to Van Doren, the "stately folios" printed by Franklin were "after two hundred years the most original and engaging documents of their century in America" (Indian Treaties Printed by Benjamin Franklin, vii). |
. . . |
There are about 398 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|