Creating New England, Defending the Northeast
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1500s 1600s mapping history
16th century
17th century
A01=Nathan Braccio
Age of Exploration
agriculture
Algonquian mapmaking traditions
American colonial studies
appropriation
appropriation Indigenous knowledge
archival material
Author_Nathan Braccio
awikhigan
borders
cartographic appropriation history
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
colonial cartography critique
colonial exploration Northeast
colonial insecurity Indigenous land
colonial New England mapping
colonial settler negotiations
colonization
community land history
Connecticut
conquest narrative complication
cosmography
deep landscape knowledge
early American geography
early modern cartography
English colonial dependence
English surveying
English surveying techniques
epistemology
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
European scientific mapping
hybrid
imperialism
indigenization
Indigenous adaptation colonialism
Indigenous cartography history
Indigenous maps
Indigenous resistance cartography
Indigenous spatial sovereignty
influences
land management
land negotiation history
landscape knowledge transmission
landscape marking colonial era
landscape power dynamics
long Indigenous habitation
mapmaking
maps
Massachusetts lawyers
mathematical surveying history
narratives of conquest
Nathan Braccio scholarship
navigation
New England geography history
New England Indigenous history
North Atlantic
North Atlantic exploration history
overhead perspective cartography
overlooked Indigenous knowledge
parallel landscapes
parallel landscapes concept
patchwork
Pequot War
placemaking theory history
Poets Press
regional knowledge
religious significance
remapping colonial landscape
resources
Rhode Island
sachems
sachems colonial negotiations
settlers
spatial control Algonquian
spatial culture
spatial knowledge Indigenous peoples
Stonington
supremacy
survival
tension
territorial knowledge history
territory
Product details
- ISBN 9781625349149
- Weight: 513g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 20 Feb 2026
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Examining maps and placemaking during negotiations between Indigenous people and colonial settlers
Between 1500 and 1700, Indigenous and English mapmakers across the North Atlantic depicted present-day New England in markedly distinct ways, highlighting how differently their communities understood the landscape. While English cartographers relied on new mathematics and other developing scientific knowledge from Europe, as well as an overhead perspective of the world, Algonquian mapmakers drew on deep knowledge of the landscape, derived from their communities' long history upon it. Nathan Braccio refers to this phenomenon as 'parallel landscapes.'
Creating New England, Defending the Northeast asserts that Algonquian knowledge of the landscape represented a powerful and persistent alternative to English surveying and mapmaking in the Northeast. When English colonists and explorers recognized the unsuitability of their techniques for understanding New England’ s unfamiliar landscape, they attempted to appropriate Indigenous knowledge and maps. Algonquian sachems used this as an opportunity to control and benefit from their new English neighbors. Later, as the English became insecure in their dependence on Indigenous people, they began to remake and mark the landscape. Algonquians adapted, maintaining control of important spatial knowledge, even in a place no longer entirely of their making. This story complicates narratives of conquest and highlights the Indigenous spatial knowledge too often overlooked.
Between 1500 and 1700, Indigenous and English mapmakers across the North Atlantic depicted present-day New England in markedly distinct ways, highlighting how differently their communities understood the landscape. While English cartographers relied on new mathematics and other developing scientific knowledge from Europe, as well as an overhead perspective of the world, Algonquian mapmakers drew on deep knowledge of the landscape, derived from their communities' long history upon it. Nathan Braccio refers to this phenomenon as 'parallel landscapes.'
Creating New England, Defending the Northeast asserts that Algonquian knowledge of the landscape represented a powerful and persistent alternative to English surveying and mapmaking in the Northeast. When English colonists and explorers recognized the unsuitability of their techniques for understanding New England’ s unfamiliar landscape, they attempted to appropriate Indigenous knowledge and maps. Algonquian sachems used this as an opportunity to control and benefit from their new English neighbors. Later, as the English became insecure in their dependence on Indigenous people, they began to remake and mark the landscape. Algonquians adapted, maintaining control of important spatial knowledge, even in a place no longer entirely of their making. This story complicates narratives of conquest and highlights the Indigenous spatial knowledge too often overlooked.
Nathan Braccio is assistant professor of History at Clark University. His writing has appeared in the Journal of Early American Studies and the Historical Journal of Massachusetts.
