Faith and Boundaries: Colonists, Christianity, and Community among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha's Vineyard, 1600-1871 (Studies in North American Indian History Series) Book

3.5 stars for me... This book is a bit to wade through, but it challenges the colonial-indigenous narrative on a few key points that make it worthwhile. 1) The most important of these is that Protestant Christianity was forced on all natives with little variance - Silverman aptly demonstrates that the Wampanoag Indians of Martha's Vineyard instead "Indigenized Christianity" by making it the center of their community and in doing so saved their core beliefs. This may be one of the only examples where natives devout practice of Christianity, though questioned by whites, actually helped save their communities. 2) Silverman also demonstrates the limits of Christian tolerance when it came to other races. European Christians saw their faith as a way to unify diverse peoples, but when push came to shove they didn't want to be *that* unified with darker skinned persons, and thus turned to racism and racist practices as a way to drive a wedge between white Christians and "other" Christians. Settlers made divisions about race and ethnicity rather than religion.