000			04585cam a2200409Ii 4500
001			ocn930270035
003			OCoLC
005			20240726104953.0
008			151124s2015 mdu ob 001 0 eng d
040			_aNT _beng _erda _epn _cNT _dNT _dYDXCP _dP@U _dTEFOD
020			_a9781421418667 _q((electronic)l(electronic)ctronic)
043			_an-us---
050	0	4	_aE179 _b.G768 2015
049			_aMAIN
100	1		_aDowd, Gregory Evans, _d1956- _e1
245	1	0	_aGroundless : _brumors, legends, and hoaxes on the early American frontier / _cGregory Evans Dowd.
260			_aBaltimore : _bJohns Hopkins University Press, _c(c)2015.
300			_a1 online resource.
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_acomputer _bc _2rdamedia
338			_aonline resource _bcr _2rdacarrier
347			_adata file _2rda
490	1		_aEarly America : history, context, culture
520	2		_a"Why did Elizabethan adventurers believe that the interior of America hid vast caches of gold? Who started the rumor that British officers purchased revolutionary white women's scalps, packed them by the bale, and shipped them to their superiors? And why are people today still convinced that white settlers--hardly immune as a group to the disease--routinely distributed smallpox-tainted blankets to the natives? Rumor--spread by colonists and Native Americans alike--ran rampant in early America. In Groundless, historian Gregory Evans Dowd explores why half-truths, deliberate lies, and outrageous legends emerged in the first place, how they grew, and why they were given such credence throughout the New World. Arguing that rumors are part of the objective reality left to us by the past--a kind of fragmentary archival record--he examines how uncertain news became powerful enough to cascade through the centuries. Drawing on specific case studies and tracing recurring rumors over many generations, Dowd explains the seductive power of unreliable stories in the eastern North American frontiers from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The rumors studied here--some alluring, some frightening--commanded attention and demanded action. They were all, by definition, groundless, but they were not all false, and they influenced the classic issues of historical inquiry: the formation of alliances, the making of revolutions, the expropriation of labor and resources, and the origins of war"-- _cProvided by publisher.
520	2		_a"Today we have grown so used to having boundless information at our fingertips that we can easily forget the practical limits on reliable news that both natives and European settlers faced in early America. Beyond what one could see or hear at the instant, one could only make surmises based on what others reported or reportedly said, etc. In a real sense, rumor ruled. Historians have known about this problem of information and wondered about how stories of far-off deeds, plans, or intentions could develop and then travel about from place to place, crossing various lines of authority and changing in every telling. Here Greg Dowd, an established student of Native Americans and their encounters with white settlers, makes a determined effort to examine the phenomenon itself. Using about a dozen case studies, organized in parts that alternately deal with overarching themes and groups of specific episodes, he asks on what basis rumors or legends emerged in the first place and why they grew as they did and reached the level of credibility they did. The Spanish belief that the interior of America hid huge supplies of gold will be familiar to readers, as will the white practice of using tainted blankets to spread smallpox among the natives (this before the germ theory of disease). Others, like stories of Washington's use of rumor and Franklin's worries about counterfeit currency and the role of bad information in the Indian-removal campaign of the Andrew Jackson presidency may surprise"-- _cProvided by publisher.
504			_a2
530			_a2 _ub
650		0	_aFrontier and pioneer life _zUnited States.
650		0	_aRumor _xSocial aspects _zUnited States _xHistory.
650		0	_aLegends _zUnited States.
650		0	_aHoaxes _zUnited States.
655		1	_aElectronic Books.
856	4	0	_uhttps://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=979443&site=eds-live&custid=s3260518 _zClick to access digital title | log in using your CIU ID number and my.ciu.edu password
942			_cOB _D _eEB _hE _m2015 _QOL _R _x _8NFIC _2LOC
994			_a92 _bNT
999			_c84513 _d84513
902			_a1 _bCynthia Snell _c1 _dCynthia Snell