“Never Forget,” by Nicholas Galanin © The artist. Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York City. Galanin’s work is on view this month at the Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College, in North Carolina
Discussed in this essay:
Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen. Liveright. 576 pages. $40.
In the 1630s, the powerful Pequot Confederacy of southern New England found itself beset by enemies. English settlers had recently arrived and were joining with the Pequots’ Indigenous rivals. Soon, tensions over the fur and wampum trade led to war. The fighting reached a climax when the British and their allies besieged a Pequot fort and set it aflame, hunting down those who fled. It was among the bloodiest massacres in North American history, one that experts have…
