Matthew Bahar’s Storm of the Sea recalls a time when Indians from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia acted in concert to construct a “Dawnland dominion,” harnessing the sea to express a Native sovereignty that thwarted European imperial claims (111). Wabanaki trafficked in European ships and captives, demanded tribute payments, and addressed overseas monarchs as equals. Though largely forgotten as colonists and then citizens of the American republic suppressed memories of their own ineffectual political and military responses, and of their consequent victimization by Indians, Wabanaki dominion had hardly been invisible. Bahar’s impressive research into Wabanaki oral traditions and artifacts, French- and English-language archival sources spread across two continents, and an array of published accounts reveals Wabanakis confident in their own power as well as terrified and frustrated European settlers.
While scholars of indigenous histories have begun exploring littoral and maritime spaces, Natives often appear as individuals within primarily land-based communities. In...
