On Records: Delaware Indians, Colonists, and the Media of History and Memory by Andrew Newman

Abstract

Andrew Newman aims to unravel the fundamental complexitiesof Native American sources written by non-natives and how those records often times do not catch the entire context of cultural meaning. In this case, Newman analyzes four contentious episodes between the Delaware Indians and the early settlers of New York and Pennsylvania. Uncovering the myths behind the Walam Olum, the Dido Motif, the Great Treaty of Peace, and the Walking Purchase of 1737, Newman successfully illustrates how the media of history and memory was contested between colonists and Indians in the past and how they continue to be disputed by scholars and the courtroom in the present.