Between 1730 and 1830, the lives of conquered Indians, enslaved Africans, and Anglo-Americans in southern New England became densely interwoven -- but also complicated by -- racial identities and finally divided by custom and law. In Bodies Politic, John Wood Sweet argues that the coming together of different peoples in early Rhode Island profoundly shaped the character of colonial New England, the meanings of the Revolution in the North and the making of American democracy. Grounded in a remarkable array of original sources -- from censuses and newspapers to diaries, archival images, correspondence, and court records -- this innovative and intellectually sweeping work excavates the dramatic confrontations and subtle negotiations by which Indians, Africans, and Anglo-Americans defined their respective places in early New England. Citizenship, as Sweet reveals, was defined in meeting houses as well as in court houses, in bedrooms as well as on battlefields, in medical experiments and cheap jokes as well as on the streets.Sweet views Rhode Island as an early and vibrant example of American diversity, opportunism, and prejudice. Neither unsavory nor unusual, Rhode Island in Sweet's account provides fresh perspectives on a range of topics -- from the politics of culture in colonial societies to the dynamic process by which enslaved New Englanders became free. Bodies Politic reveals the extent to which the racial legacy of Rhode Island and the broader North continues, even to this day, to shape all our lives.
