Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

Richter contends that after a long period of relatively peaceful Indian-White coexistence, the Revolutionary generation created a “racialized world” that fostered division. Based on the book, would you say that the relations between the two groups were on balance peaceful before the 1760s? Do you think the Natives would have fared better had America remained a British colony?

Richter quotes J. Hector St. John de Crévecoeur, who represented the archetypal American “new man” as either a European or a descendant of a European, and he interprets the quote to exclude Indians from the American racial mix. Do you agree with Richter’s interpretation? What might be an alternative reading of Crévecoeur quote?

Based on the evidence of the book, do you think Indians fared better under British-American leaders or under the French-American?