Our Beloved Kin

A sweeping, award-winning work of history - the anti-colonial struggle for North America, retold from the perspective of an Indian queen.

横扫北美史学界各项大奖 以印第安女王视角重写北美大陆的反殖民之战

In the mid-to-late 17th century, Metacom - the Wampanoag chief known to the English as "King Philip" - led Indigenous peoples of North America in resistance against English colonial rule. This conflict, known as King Philip's War, was the first large-scale war fought on North American soil after the arrival of Europeans.

Departing from the conventional framework of war history - which tends to focus on male military leaders and territorial disputes - this book re-narrates the conflict through three marginalized perspectives: How did the authority and actions of an Indigenous female leader, who has been largely glossed over in mainstream accounts, challenge the colonizers' assumptions about gender hierarchies? Was James Printer, a Native interpreter educated at Harvard in the Western tradition, a cross-cultural mediator or a traitor to his tribe? And how did the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson, a Puritan woman taken captive during the war, subvert colonial discourse while also exposing anxieties about gender identity?

This war between Christian and Indigenous civilizations not only reveals deep-seated conflicts over land, law, gender, and worldviews, but also lays bare the inner turmoil of individuals caught between dual cultural identities.

17世纪中后期，万帕诺亚格部落酋长梅塔卡姆（英国人称"菲利普"）领导北美原住民反抗英国殖民统治，这场被称为"菲利普王之战"的冲突，是欧洲人登陆北美后爆发的第一场大规模战争。本书突破传统战争史以男性将领和土地争夺为核心的叙事框架，通过三重边缘视角重叙了这段历史：被主流历史潦草带过的印第安女领袖的权威与行动如何挑战殖民者对性别秩序的想象？自小在哈佛教授西方教育的土著翻译官詹姆斯·普莱特是跨文化的传播使者还是部落的叛徒？被俘的清教徒女性玛丽·罗兰森的日记如何颠覆了殖民叙事与个人的性别认同焦虑？这场基督教文明与印第安文明之战，不仅展现了双方在土地观、法律观、性别观、世界观中的冲突，也刻画出身处其中的个体在双重文化认同中的焦虑与撕扯。