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

Author

Nicole Eustace

Call Number

• 364.1523 E912 (CEN, OSH)

Browse similar titles by call number

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.