Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

Richter contends that after a long period of relatively peaceful coexistence between white settlers and Indigenous peoples, the Revolutionary generation created a “racialized world” that fostered division. Based on the book, what key political, cultural, and economic factors led to the establishment of this “racialized world”? What impact did this development have on future generations of Indigenous people in North America?

Richter quotes J. Hector St. John de Crévecoeur, who represented the archetypal American “new man” as “neither a European nor a descendant of a European.” In Richter’s view, what made American identity distinct from European identity? At what point in early American history did European colonists become American, as opposed to European?

What were the key differences between British-American and French-American colonial relations with Indigenous people? In what ways were these colonizers similar?