New England Bound

March 14, 2016
Countering the historiography of colonial New England that’s focused on Puritans and Native Americans, Warren, an assistant professor of history at Princeton, elegantly makes clear how “the shadow of an Atlantic slave trade darkened even the earliest interactions between Europeans and Indians in New England.” Readers familiar with the Salem witch trials will recognize the figure of Tituba, the Carib Indian slave of the community’s minister and the alleged instigator of the rituals that sparked the hysteria; Warren reveals that enslaved Africans were far from anomalous in these colonies, having arrived as early as 1638. Leading New England merchants, many of whom had close ties of kinship and business with the English plantation colonies in the West Indies, were heavily invested in the transatlantic trade in humans. Even less elite residents of these colonies—including sailors, artisans, and farmwives—were aware of and profited, directly or indirectly, from the presence of slaves in their communities. By describing the lived experiences of these slaves, Warren adds a new and surprising dimension to the oft-told story of the New England colonies—one that offers much-needed revision and complication of the simple and comforting myths of intercultural friendship and virtuous endeavor. Illus.