William Hart’s stated objective in his fine new monograph is to “problematize” the ways in which individual “faithful Mohawks” (20) engaged and performed Protestantism over the course of a long eighteenth century. Informed by deep research in a sizeable primary archive of missionary correspondence, and grounded in broad study of both ethnohistorical scholarship on Christian missionization and performance theory, Hart’s book succeeds admirably in providing an evenhanded assessment of the phenomenon of Anglican missionary work among the Mohawks from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. Additionally, his insights into this particular case study address broader questions for all those interested in the dynamics of cross-cultural contact.
Hart moves beyond long-standing tropes in studies of missionary work among Indigenous people, expressing healthy skepticism of the efforts of prior scholars to measure the degree to which Mohawk conversions to Christianity were bona fide. Instead, Hart maintains that we can...
