Margaret Newell, author of Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery

English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of Indians, and the colonists’ desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, including the Pequot War of 1637 and King Philip’s War of 1675–76. Brethren by Nature recovers the slaves' own stories and shows how they influenced New England society in crucial ways, including by exposing their captors to Native religion, foods, and technology. The book also explores how slavery linked the fate of Africans and Indians. Second- and third-generation Indian slaves fought their enslavement and claimed citizenship in cases that had implications for all enslaved peoples in eighteenth-century America.

Margaret Newell is vice chair of the History Department at Ohio State University. In 2016, her book was awarded the James A. Rawley Prize for best book on the history of race relations in the U.S. as well as the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize from the Massachusetts Historical Society.