Groundless : rumors, legends, and hoaxes on the early American frontier /
Today we have grown so used to having boundless information at our fingertips that we can easily forget the practical limits on reliable news that both natives and European settlers faced in early America. Beyond what one could see or hear at the instant, one could only make surmises based on what o...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Baltimore :
Johns Hopkins University Press,
[2015]
|
| Series: | Early America.
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Today we have grown so used to having boundless information at our fingertips that we can easily forget the practical limits on reliable news that both natives and European settlers faced in early America. Beyond what one could see or hear at the instant, one could only make surmises based on what others reported or reportedly said, etc. In a real sense, rumor ruled. Historians have known about this problem of information and wondered about how stories of far-off deeds, plans, or intentions could develop and then travel about from place to place, crossing various lines of authority and changing in every telling. Here Greg Dowd, an established student of Native Americans and their encounters with white settlers, makes a determined effort to examine the phenomenon itself. Using about a dozen case studies, organized in parts that alternately deal with overarching themes and groups of specific episodes, he asks on what basis rumors or legends emerged in the first place and why they grew as they did and reached the level of credibility they did. The Spanish belief that the interior of America hid huge supplies of gold will be familiar to readers, as will the white practice of using tainted blankets to spread smallpox among the natives (this before the germ theory of disease). Others, like stories of Washington's use of rumor and Franklin's worries about counterfeit currency and the role of bad information in the Indian-removal campaign of the Andrew Jackson presidency may surprise. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | ix, 391 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781421418650 1421418657 |