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Lipman begins his article describing the incident where John Gallop discovers a European ship taken over by Indians and the conflict that followed when he gave chase. This massacre that Lipman describes is one apparently done out of pure intense reaction. Lipman describes the horror that swept over John Gallop: “But relief soon turned to dread as Gallop realized that the vessel’s deck was swarming with Indians, while a canoe paddled away ‘full of Indians and goods.’”(Lipman, 269). Lipman goes on to state that after the discovery of Oldham’s body was used as a motivation for Puritan governors as they launched attacks on Indians near Long Island.
We can make the connection that due to previous European encounters with native peoples, hostility towards Europeans was not uncommon. Miscommunication and violence in early periods of contact set the precedent for instability for the time going forward. Viktoriya Shalunova references this within her post, arguing that it would seem natural to attack those who have harmed your people and way of life.
This article does not simply imply that there was only violence before this incident though, as Lipman states that these colonial and Indian mariners needed each others specialized skills and technology (Lipman, 274). Colonists needed the cartographic, linguistic, and cultural knowledge of the “seagoing Indians” and in some cases even needed their vessels in order to travel near shore.
This article shows us both the perilous environment that the native mariners and colonial mariners engaged in and the types of cultural exchange that occurred within these spaces. Frontiers are places of extremes, with which we find various unique moments of interaction throughout history. Lipman uses the term “saltwater frontier” in his description of the zones that these people inhabited together, which I believe fits perfectly.