Our Beloved Kin

Offers a new history of a largely overlooked period in American history (mid-to-late 17th century). The war turned out to be an inflection point in colonial-indigenous relations, with the dark forces of capital and religious conservatism violently absorbing New England's native peoples into their new regime centered ideologically around fanatic protection of private property. Most notably, Brooks offers a critical reading of a fascinating primary document: “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”, in which a Massachusetts Bay Colony housewife recounts the story of her kidnapping by a war party of the Wampanoag coalition. Brooks reads between the lines of Mary Rowlandson's terror and uses the work to highlight the results of the conflict of understandings of the world.