The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America

In our ideologically divided country, we should all avail ourselves of works such as Weidensaul’s “First Frontier.” His work reminds us of the differences in our early world whether it was colonists to Natives, colonies to other colonies, or even family within family. The years of savagery on all sides make it even more amazing that we have a country at all. My advice? Get past the foreign-sounding names and places and immerse yourself in this highly readable story of the frontier, before anyone even thought of something called the United States.

Hats off to the author......who has distilled tremendous amounts of research into a very readable narrative. Provides fresh insight on the long and tortuous struggle between western man and his Indian counterpart. So much tragedy. But you finish having a better grasp of why it had to be the way it was. Not at all a sentimental journey. Just straight up human history, pitting two ways of life, where winner takes all.

There is still so much to learn about the clash of Europeans and the Natives of North America. Thankfully, author Weidensaul goes a long way in describing the impact on the "First Frontier", the land stretching from the Maritimes to Florida. Interestingly, the first bit of the book covers the debate of who arrived first on the continent.This discussion has two thrusts. First, addressing the long-held belief that native peoples came across the northern ice cap, genetic testing and linguistics now suggest there may have been multiple waves of human migration...some of it by sea. The other thrust concerns which Europeans came first. The Basques are credited as having been frequent visitors for centuries to the point that Mi'kmaqs knew the language and sailed Basque-made shallops.I have often wondered how different the world would be if the various tribes had cooperated and concertedly repelled the Europeans (it would make an entertaining alternative history series). Surprisingly, I learned there was a great deal of such activity ... Natives were not complacent or compliant, they were simply overwhelmed, small in number, and divided. Most of the histories I have read start with the French and Indian Wars so this study of the time before proved many Natives and their Nations were definitely opposed to the newcomers.Mysteriously, pre-contact populations were already reduced and became even more decimated as Natives succumbed to European diseases. The precolonial population is estimated at 3.8 million but this is hotly debated. Weidensaul contends that because Native populations were a fraction of what they had been (some reduced by 90%). So when Europeans began arriving if they had been larger, North American history would have been very different indeed.As fascinating as that is, the book's intent is to document the conflicts driven by greed, human nature, and the overwhelming number of Europeans. The author admits, "Because Europe was a literate society, while Native America depended on oral traditions, the sources on which we can draw are pitifully lopsided." So a great deal of the Native side of the history is still missing.In the end this is "The story of people - not stereotypes, but complex individuals and societies". It is an often brutal and unfair series of conflicts fought with varied strategies. Natives fought an asymmetrical style that was eventually overwhelmed by the larger, more devastating and determined European efforts. Weidensaul states that, "No one had a monopoly on heroism or unprincipled behavior" and that becomes abundantly clear.The stories are fascinating with amazing characters. It fills a void missing in the history of North America. And it made me think how different the world could have been.

This is a very readable book about a time in American history that is not often understood or taught. The beginning deals with the Natives about whom there isn't as much known because of the lack of written records. The author uses archeology, geology and DNA studies to try to understand who these people were and how they got there. The early interactions with Europeans constitutes the rest of the book. There are events that are well known to history buffs, like the Pequot War and King Philip's War. But there was also a full chapter on Native-European relations in the Carolinas with Tuscarora and Yamassee peoples. This was a fascinating story that I hadn't known much about. The book continues with the difficult relations with the French, the English and the various native tribes that traded with and then took sides with, the two European powers. The book continues to the French-Indian War.The book is very readable and kept me wanting to read more. There are many interesting characters in the book, both Native American and European, that I want to learn more about. The Native Americans in the book are fully three-dimensional and are shown as equal players in the events of the seventeenth and eighteenth century in North America. But the book doesn't fall into political correctness. The Native Americans negotiated with the French and British and each other. They were equal players in the intrigue of the times. He does not portray them as hapless victims. And he shows how the whites who were born in North American were distrustful of the European born aristocrats who came to run things. Most of the whites wanted to engage in trade with the Native Americans and many of them intermarried. Many of the French and English despised each other more than the Native Americans.If I have a complaint about the book, it is a lack of footnotes and endnotes. It has a decent size bibliography, but very few notes. There were many interesting events and details that I wanted to learn more about, but I couldn't determine where these stories came from. But the book is so good that I don't want to give it less than 5 stars just for that.

An excellent book! Very dense! I love reading it!

On the tightrope between documented history as recorded by the colonial forerunners of globalization and undocumented history as recorded by the cultures that were destroyed by globalization, Weidensaul shines in the spotlight of this riveting narrative.From his overview of ancient human origins in the not-so-New World through the earliest ventures in intercontinental traffic to the age of global expansion that permanently carried the rock of Europe to the hard place of America, it's hard to imagine a more compelling telling of this deeply complex story.Tragedy and Hope on every page, people and their policies come to life in their own words and in Weidensaul's judicious juxtapositions of fundamentally incompatible worldviews grinding away at each other for 150 crucial years at the beginning and early shaping of pre-revolutionary America.At a time when bright light clearly illuminating history is much needed -- here it is. Cannot recommend too highly!

We all know quite a bit about the Indian Wars during the 1800's in the Western US. However, this book deals with the "first" history of western man's contact with the American natives in eastern North America. I believe that recent research has made much of this history available to us. Really worth considering!

An excellent revisionist history of the settlement of the eastern seaboard, painstakingly detailing the sharp practices by which indigenous people were moved constantly further West as European settlers took their land. Scrupulously even-handed in recounting a story of violence, perfidy, heroism and rare generosity, on both sides. This book has given a me, a Canadian of Scottish exraction, fresh and troubling perspectives on the European settlement of my country as well as that of the USA. Highly recommended.

I learned a lot from reading this book. We were not taught this stuff in school and I was always curious when I heard references to this time before the American Revolution. I recommend this read highly.