The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity

The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity (1998
By Jill Lepore

Synopsis: This book is a study of war, and the ways in which people write about it. It looks at the way war is remembered and how its documentation and discussion is subject to who is doing the narration and what purpose the narration is supposed to serve. Lepore does this by following different understandings and interpretations of Kin Philip's War, and the way language was used to control meaning. Basic argument is that: "...wounds and word - the injuries and their interpretation - cannot be separated, that acts of war generate acts of narrations, and that both types of acts are often joined in a common purpose: defining the geographical, political, cultural, and sometimes racial and national boundaries between peoples" (x). KP's war was the war waged on NE colonists started by "King Philip," Chief of the Wamanoags, to prevent the Puritans from completely taking over. Says NEs didn't even search for an NA motive, and instead just marked NA behavior as "savage," and started telling tales of their "savagery" in order to increase their own distance from them (culturally). In 1776 or so, KPW was used as anti-English Revolutionary rhetoric (i.e. as proof of English savagery), and was again used in the 1820s to hasten Indian Removal, and then was also later used again as stage actors utilized Indianness as "Americanness."

Interesting Specifics:

"The story of King Philip's War...is the story of how English colonists became Americans..." (240).

KPW = 1675-76

KPW was most fatal war in U.S. history.

"If was is, at least in part, a contest for meaning, can it ever be a fair fight when only one side has access to those perfect instruments of empire, pens, paper, and printing press?" (xxi).

The NE colonists wanted to make sure not to appear "Spanish" at all in their dealings with NAs; i.e. they didn't want to be brutal like the Spanish were.

By the late 17th century, "what one owned defined who one was" (76).

Were many plays of KPW; famous American stage actor Edwin Forrest was the most famous to play King Philip, and it was the clash between him and his English rival Charles Macready that sparked the Astor Place riots of 1849.

Interacts With:

Books that talk about shifting meanings of events, and the way events are remembered according to presentist concerns. Meaning of historical events often remains contested.
Culture is malleable.
Cronon (in relation to centrality of property-ownership to colonial identity, and in colonists inability to see different NA way of life as legit).
Horrible Prettiness (just as connects to Astor Place Riots)
One review says this book embodies a very American studies approach, and also shows way KPW helped colonists define themselves as "American" through a contrast with Native American and with the English.

"The America's before and after 1492;" and "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492"

"The America's before and after 1492," By Karl Butzer (Sep. 1992); and "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492," By William M. Denevan, (Sep. 1992)
Both from Annals


Butzer Synopsis: Both articles written to celebrate 500th anniversary of Columbus's encounter with the New World, and both are designed to dispel the myth that the New World was a pristine land when Columbus reached it. Native Americans of course did alter the environment and utilize many different methods of agriculture. Also, Euro diseases wiped out about 90% of Native population, paving the way for a totally new colonial landscape. However, there is not much evidence of European land damage prior to the 1700s, and says that Euros actually did have a history of agricultural conservation. Therefore, we should really be asking when and why Euros gave up their more conservationist techniques. Essentially, this article is a review of many works that ask us to question long-held assumptions about the condition of North American land before and after Euro contact.


Denevan Synopsis: Indians of course did alter the landscape, but "the landscape of 1750 was more 'pristine' (less humanized) than that of 1492" due to the demise of Indian populations from Euro diseases, etc (370). The hemisphere-wide Indian population was probably only 30% of what it was in 1492. Furthermore, most Euro descriptions of the land didn't occur until 1750-1850, at which time the environment had had a chance to "recover" and grow back - appearing "pristine." Environments are always in flux; change comes and goes and new environments are imposed upon "pristine" landscapes.


Interacts With: Cronon