From 1675 to 1685, Kruer argues in Time of Anarchy, a “tide of insurrection” swept across England’s North American colonies as frontier settler patriarchs, driven by a combination of conspiratorial fear and material danger, withdrew from the political compact of empire (3). The most significant catalyst for these popular revolts, Kruer compellingly demonstrates, was one of eastern North America’s least understood, and most sparingly documented, indigenous nations: the Susquehannock.
The raiding of Susquehannocks in Maryland, Virginia, and Albemarle (North Carolina) wrought popular protest against colonial governments for failing to prevent or adequately respond to frontier violence. Confusion surrounding the identity of raiders, and the perception that government inaction was motivated by alignment with the interests of Native Americans generally over those of settlers, further encouraged conspiracies that imagined coalitions of tributary Algonquian nations, foreign enemies, and complicit oligarchs combined against white Protestant colonists. These conspiracies nourished rebellions—most notably Bacon’s...