In a sweeping synthesis of a crucial period of American history, From Dependency to Independence starts with the "problem" of New England's economic development. As a struggling outpost of a powerful commercial empire, colonial New England grappled with problems familiar to modern developing societies: a lack of capital and managerial skills, a nonexistent infrastructure, and a domestic economy that failed to meet the inhabitants' needs or to generate exports.

Yet, less than a century and a half later, New England staged the war for political independence and the industrial revolution....

In Brethren by Nature, Margaret Ellen Newell reveals a little-known aspect of American history: English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of Indians. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists' desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, including the Pequot War of 1637, King Philip's War of 1675 76, and the northeastern Wabanaki conflicts of 1676 1749. When the wartime conquest of Indians ceased, New Englanders turned to the courts to get control of their labor, or imported Indians from Florida and the...

In Brethren by Nature, Margaret Ellen Newell reveals a little-known aspect of American history: English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of Indians. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists' desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, including the Pequot War of 1637, King Philip's War of 1675 76, and the northeastern Wabanaki conflicts of 1676 1749. When the wartime conquest of Indians ceased, New Englanders turned to the courts to get control of their labor, or imported Indians from Florida and the...