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Can anyone imagine being greeted by people who want you dead? Lipman’s article “Murder on the Saltwater Frontier” is about the intense and often bloody rivalries between natives and explorers like John Gallop. Natives, like the Manisses, killed John Oldman when he and his crew were diverted to Block Island from a fateful wind of change. It comes as no surprise that the European “intruders” encroached upon native territory, making war over space almost inevitable for the native Americans. This war ultimately resulted in the death, dismemberment and enslavement of the Natives. It was, to a certain extent, a grisly culture clash as the Manisses and other tribes battled the Europeans for territory.
I like how Viktoriya’s response lends itself nicely to the fact that this was not just a “European discovery of the New World” but rather a dual discovery and mutual misunderstanding because they and the natives met each other and competed for land, even if they didn’t mean to cause harm to each other. Furthermore, I was amazed to hear they even competed out at sea because the natives had their own trade routes on the water. After reading this, I couldn`t believe the natives actually traded by sea, just like the Europeans. One excerpt from the article even talks about the Dutch and the English settling in the Northeast, reminding of Chapter 4 from The Atlantic World by Egerton et al. as they looked for new land to settle for trade and colonialism. Lipman even mentions Smallwood’s article on the slave trade played a role in this “saltwater frontier.” According to Lipman, the earliest explorers and natives actually “depended on each others skills and technology (Lipman, 274).” All in all, these saltwater frontiers of trade and cultural clash all became intertwined in creating new frontiers of Atlantic history.
Lipman, Andrew C. “Murder on the Saltwater Frontier: The Death of John Oldham.” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 9, no. 2 (2011): 268-294. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed September 24, 2016).