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On the eve of a major treaty conference between Iroquois leaders and European colonists in the distant summer of 1722\, two white fur traders attacked an Indigenous hunter and left him for dead near Conestoga\, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotte n today\, this act of brutality set into motion a remarkable series of cri minal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations that challenged the d efinition of justice in early America.
\n"In \;Covered with Nigh t"\, Dr. Eustace reconstructs the crime and its aftermath\, bringing us in to the overlapping worlds of white colonists and Indigenous peoples in thi s formative period. As she shows\, the murder of the Indigenous man set th e entire mid-Atlantic on edge\, with many believing war was imminent. Isol ated killings often flared into colonial wars in North America\, and colon ists now anticipated a vengeful Indigenous uprising. Frantic efforts to re solve the case ignited a dramatic\, far-reaching debate between Native Ame rican forms of justice&mdash\;centered on community\, forgiveness\, and re parations&mdash\;and an ideology of harsh reprisal\, unique to the colonie s and based on British law\, which called for the killers&rsquo\; swift ex ecution. As Eustace powerfully contends\, the colonial obsession with &ldq uo\;civility&rdquo\; belied the reality that the Iroquois\, far from being the barbarians of the white imagination\, acted under a mantle of sophist ication and humanity as they tried to make the land-and power-hungry colon ials understand their ways. \;
\nAbout the Author: \;Nicole Eustace is a professor of history at New York University. A historian of t he early modern Atlantic and the early United States\, she specializes in the history of emotion. She is author of Pulitzer-Prize winning "Covered w ith Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America"\, as well as "Passion Is the Gale: Emotion\, Power\, and the Coming of the Ame rican Revolution" and of "1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism" as wel l as co editor of "Warring for America: Cultural Contests in the Era of 18 12".
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