New Worlds for All:Indians, Europeans and the Remaking of Early America

Collin G. Calloway’s â€Å"New Worlds for All† is a wonderfully written look into the relationship between the indiginious people and the Europeans who came to America. His work takes a different path than those of other historians. There is a creative genius in how he explores the historical facts and insight into the history of the two different people’s lives. It is a helpful look at the lineage of the time and brings a new insight into the historical facts of our time. Covering events from the Revolutionary war in his introduction where our fore fathers asked the Indians to not stand at their side but remain passive in the fight for freedom in the introduction. Quoting several of our fore fathers, the tact they used in their bid to get the native people to think that they were all one and that they stood together with them. Each of the ten chapters covers a wide range of subject matter from the interactions with the Europeans and the Natives, to the warfare of the Natives against each other as well as against the invading Europeans. We take a walk through the Seven years war as well as all the wars that came before and after. It takes a look at the way the Europeans arrived in North America and wanted to build societies much like the ones they had left behind in Europe. It also goes on to explain that while they thought they were superior they found that the Native people were in some cases more advanced and superior than their own culture. How their arrival changed not only the workings of the native communities but the very land they lived on with the cutting down of trees for homes and the over hunting of their lands for food making it harder for them to feed their own families. The chapter on disease and healing was an amazing look at how the European disease affected the natives. It also looked at how the natives dealt with healing as not so much healing as conflict as they were complementary. Calloway goes on to say that while Native America people were not completely disease free the magnitude of their diseases were actually rather simple, from aches and pains to snake bites. Medicine men had a vast knowledge of herbs and plants that could be used for medicinal purposes. He covers the decimation of entire tribes by disease some of them brought by the Europeans and others brought by the natives themselves as they traded in foreign lands. There were several ceremonial aspects to the trade with the natives that the Europeans tried to integrate into their own trades. The Stuff of life in chapter three goes into depth about the interactions of the native people and the Europeans as they not only struggled to coexist as well as integrate the bits and pieces of each other’s cultures into their lives. Learning how to do something’s differently like hunting for food and even the diets and clothing they wore took on the differences of what they learned from each other. In the next chapter Calloway talks about the integration of religious beliefs of the different people the Christians that brought with them their beliefs in one God and his word, it brought many of the natives into a new religious arena where they learned about bibles, churches, missions, priest and ministers. Indian religions tended to be less exclusive and intolerant than that of the Christians. It is an interesting look at the way they handled the integration of the Christians not only into their culture but into their lives and how their own beliefs were shaped outside of what the Christians believed. Chapter five takes a look at the ways the Europeans affected the Indians in their warfare not only against the Europeans but also against other natives. The face of the way war was fought not only between warring tribes. The turning point in the tribal warfare changed on one Instance, 1609 when the Algonkin and the Montagnais Indians, the use of guns made this an uneventful war and short lived but it opened the door way to the Indian people to guerrilla warfare as well as the use of guns. The introduction of guns made the native weapons basically useless. Chapter Six, the diplomacy and Foreign affairs of the Europeans and the Indians were at times bloody and deadly, fighting to preserve their own lands the Indians had to adapt to the foreigners as they invaded and the Europeans were after more land and more land, always fighting with the Europeans trying to maintain the balance between the two worlds was difficult one side or the other was always violating the treaties that they signed. As more Europeans moved into the new world and more warfare and diseases ravaged the lands the Indians were forced to move from place to place and rebuild their world and lives often in environments that were not their own and dealing with people that they knew nothing about, this often created tension and conflicts. As well as the need for the Indians were forced to adapt to the world around them. There is a lot of great information in this book, and a fresh perspective that takes the reader weather a professional historian or just the average reader into the lives of people from different worlds. It is a new look at the world that was created around us and the people who inhabited it, their lives and the changes that were caused by each interaction with the other. Mr. Calloway takes us on a journey through old and new in an enlightening way, exploring the world as it is new and discovering the different effects of the changes in cultures, beliefs, politics and life as the people of two different cultures learned, adjusted, and tried to build the world we now see around us. A great read for anyone interested in the history of America and the people in it.