Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, & Land Speculators on the New England Frontier

Join author Ian Saxine for a talk on his new book Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, & Land Speculators on the New England Frontier. Properties of Empire challenges assumptions about the relationship between Indigenous and imperial property creation in early America. Many colonists came to believe 

their prosperity depended on acknowledging Indigenous land rights and Wabanaki Indians’ unity allowed them to forcefully project their own interpretations of poorly remembered land deeds and treaties. The ongoing struggle to construct a commonly agreed-upon culture of landownership shaped diplomacy, imperial administration, and matters of colonial law in powerful ways, and its legacy remains with us today.