Christina Snyder's Slavery in Indian Country

Christina Snyder, who was a student of South history, focused on Oglethorpe and colonization, slavery and the Civil War. However, when she learned of an older South, which was once dominated by Native people, she was fascinated by the region’s Native history. Although there were much warfare occurred at the region, she concluded the region as “… I also learned that these two Souths were never really separate, that the region was and is diverse and contested.” (Snyder 317) In the book “Slavery in Indian Country”, she explored the long history of captivity. I will write a book review of this book in the following.

First, she explored the history of slavery and affection of it, which started from captivity. She was not convincing her reader but introduce people into the history of the old South region. She uses many detail of war as example to give her readers an image of the time. Readers would understand the link between warfare and taking captives into the Natives communities. She started at the point which colonies had not found the South, and tried to explain the exercise of slavery in the region. Before the colonies arrived, people on the South formed villages and they fought against each other for resources and food. People who have been captured in the war are captive or war prisoner. Snyder stated “captives usually arrived in Native communities as prisoners of war or as chattel via trade. Still others came voluntarily…hoping that their captors would choose to adopt them” (5) and slavery is a kind of captive. She pointed out that captive and slavery had existed long before the colonies arrived. She explained captive was a form of slave in war, which points out that slavery exist before the Colonies arrived. She said in the b...

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...was illustrative with wording and details.

In short, Snyder explored the long history of captivity in her book “Slavery in Indian Country.” She presented the history of slavery and affection of it by many examples and research. Her work was convincing because of full description and context. She approached the topic in a clear bias apparent by pointing out her stand at the beginning of the book. She has a rich variety of source to support the book. I do not think she is trying to argue against another historian’s interpretation of the subject because I could not find any evidence of that. All she did was present her research and present a big picture of the topic. Last, but not least, I am agree with her on the topic of slavery, which exist before the Colonies arrived.

Works Cited

Snyder, Christina. Slavery in Indian Country. Harvard University Press, 2010.