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Book

Covered with night : a story of murder and indigenous justice in early America

Call Number

  • 364.1523 E912 (CEN, OSH)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2021]

Physical Description

xiv, 447 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm

Summary

"An immersive tale of the killing of a Native American man and its far-reaching consequences for Colonial America. In the summer of 1722, on the eve of a conference between the Five Nations of the Iroquois and British-American colonists, two colonial fur traders brutally attacked an Indigenous hunter in colonial Pennsylvania. The crime set the entire mid-Atlantic on edge, with many believing that war was imminent. Frantic efforts to resolve the case created a contest between Native American forms of justice, centered on community, forgiveness, and reparations, and an ideology of harsh reprisal, based on British law, that called for the killers' execution. In a stunning narrative history based on painstaking original research, acclaimed historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the crime and its aftermath, taking us into the worlds of Euro-Americans and Indigenous peoples in this formative period. A feat of reclamation evoking Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale and Alan Taylor's William Cooper's Town, Eustace's utterly absorbing account provides a new understanding of Indigenous forms of justice, with lessons for our era"--Provided by publisher.

Contents

  • Tomorrow's doom : July 30-August 1, 1722
  • Taquatarensaly (captain civility)
  • When things go ill : February 1722
  • Sawantaeny
  • Sorrow will come fast : March 6, 1722
  • John Catlidge
  • What content and decency require : March 7-14, 1722
  • Peter Bezaillion
  • Two heads are better than one : March 15-17, 1722
  • Weenepeeweytah and Elizabeth Cartlidge
  • Forgive anyone sooner than thyself : March 21-26, 1722
  • Isaac Norris
  • He will go to law : April 4-7, 1722
  • Satcheechoe
  • Stark naught : May 4-11, 1722
  • William Keith
  • Take him now : June 15-July 2, 1722
  • Ousewayteichks (Smith the Ganawese)
  • Money and good men : August 3-15, 1722
  • James Le Tort
  • A word to the wise : August-September 1722
  • James Logan
  • Stiff obstinacy : October 3-5, 1722
  • Civility's last word.

Subjects