Review of A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America. By Nancy Shoemaker (New York, Oxford University Press, 2004) 211 pp.

Abstract

Shoemaker’s A Strange Likeness is the latest contribution to a growing field of study devoted to tracing the development of racially oriented identities (in this case, “red” and “white” rather than “black” and “white”) in early America. This short and eminently readable book surveys the landscape of the British colonies during the eighteenth century, exploring how Lenape, Iroquois, Creek, and many others all came to be “red” and the English, Irish, German, etc., came to be “white.” Shoemaker’s main task is to demonstrate how cultural differences perceived by American native inhabitants and European newcomers gradually came to be understood as symbolic or representative of essential differences. By the end of the eighteenth century, “white” and “red” people were presumed to be shaped and motivated by essential characteristics of their “race.”