Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America
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3.8 • 11 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
WINNER • 2022 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY
Finalist • National Book Award for Nonfiction
Best Books of the Year • TIME, Smithsonian, Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews
The Pulitzer Prize-winning history that transforms a single event in 1722 into an unparalleled portrait of early America.
In the winter of 1722, on the eve of a major conference between the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois) and Anglo-American colonists, a pair of colonial fur traders brutally assaulted a Seneca hunter near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, the crime ignited a contest between Native American forms of justice—rooted in community, forgiveness, and reparations—and the colonial ideology of harsh reprisal that called for the accused killers to be executed if found guilty. In Covered with Night, historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the attack and its aftermath, introducing a group of unforgettable individuals—from the slain man’s resilient widow to an Indigenous diplomat known as “Captain Civility” to the scheming governor of Pennsylvania—as she narrates a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations. Taking its title from a Haudenosaunee metaphor for mourning, Covered with Night ultimately urges us to consider Indigenous approaches to grief and condolence, rupture and repair, as we seek new avenues of justice in our own era.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Get ready for one of the most compelling true-crime stories to emerge from the 18th century. Historian Nicole Eustace takes us back to 1722, when a nefarious pair of English fur-trading brothers in North America bludgeoned an Iroquois man to death for not accepting their lowball offers. That incident would have massive fallout for both English and Native leaders. Eustace explores the case with such a great eye for its most dramatic elements that, at times, it felt like we were reading Law & Order: Colonial. She uses every scrap of material still in existence—from handwritten letters to still-intact treaties—to piece together not just that murder case but also the massive gap between what the English settlers and Indigenous Iroquois considered justice. That difference in mindsets is what made this heinous murder such a massive issue in the 1700s—and what makes it remain just as relevant today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
NYU history professor Eustace (1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism) delivers an immersive account of the fallout from the 1722 killing of a Seneca Indian hunter by two white fur traders in Pennsylvania. Eustace describes how the assault sparked fears of an all-out war between colonists and the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee, and details months of intense negotiations resulting in the still-recognized Albany Treaty of 1722. She draws a sharp contrast between Indigenous principles of justice, which sought "emotional reconciliation and economic restitution for the resolution of crimes," and Pennsylvania's strict new penal code, which required the suspects to be imprisoned and executed if found guilty. Eustace also delves into Indigenous concepts of land ownership and the prominent role of women within the Five Nations; explores the rift between the Quaker founders of Pennsylvania and later Anglican settlers; and notes that the Albany Treaty, which ceded new lands in western Pennsylvania and New York to the colonists, is also a record of restorative justice achieved through condolence ceremonies and reparation payments. Throughout, she makes excellent use of primary sources to convey the sophisticated rhetorical strategies of Native negotiators. Early American history buffs will be fascinated.
