COLONIAL CONTACTS, INDIAN IDENTITIES

Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers. By Kent G. Lightfoot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. xiii + 338 pp. Maps, illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, and index. $45.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper).

A Colonial Complex: South Carolina's Frontiers in the Era of the Yamasee War, 1680–1730. By Steven J. Oatis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. ix + 399 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $65.00 (cloth).

Karim M. Tiro
Xavier University

Within the first pages of their books, both Kent Lightfoot and Steven Oatis lament the obscurity of the colonial period in Native American histories of California and South Carolina. Both authors demonstrate that the early frontier interactions of Europeans and Native Americans defined the native identities that emerged from that era. Nevertheless, the authors contrast significantly in approach, and the nature of the "frontiers" they examine are very different as well.