
The Lives in Objects
Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast
Jessica Stern(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 28. February 2017
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-1-4696-3147-9 (ISBN)
Description
In The Lives in Objects, Jessica Yirush Stern presents a thoroughly researched and engaging study of the deerskin trade in the colonial Southeast, equally attentive to British American and Southeastern Indian cultures of production, distribution, and consumption. Stern upends the long-standing assertion that Native Americans were solely gift givers and the British were modern commercial capitalists. This traditional interpretation casts Native Americans as victims drawn into and made dependent on a transatlantic marketplace. Stern complicates that picture by showing how both the Southeastern Indian and British American actors mixed gift giving and commodity exchange in the deerskin trade, such that Southeastern Indians retained much greater agency as producers and consumers than the standard narrative allows. By tracking the debates about Indian trade regulation, Stern also reveals that the British were often not willing to embrace modern free market values. While she sheds new light on broader issues in native and colonial history, Stern also demonstrates that concepts of labor, commerce, and material culture were inextricably intertwined to present a fresh perspective on trade in the colonial Southeast.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
7 halftones, 1 map, 1 chart, 1 table
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
622 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4696-3147-9 (9781469631479)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Jessica Yirush Stern
The Lives in Objects
Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast
E-Book
12/2016
The University of North Carolina Press
€19.49
Available for download
Person
Jessica Stern is associate professor of history at California State University, Fullerton.