This collection of seventeen original essays reshapes the field of early American legal history not by focusing simply on law, or even on the relationship between law and society, but by using the concept of "legality" to explore the myriad ways in which the people of early America ordered their relationships with one another, whether as individuals, groups, classes, communities, or states.
Addressing issues of gender, ethnicity, family, patriarchy, culture, and dependence, contributors explore the transatlantic context of early American law, the negotiation between European and indigenous legal cultures, the multiple social contexts of the rule of law, and the transformation of many legalities into an increasingly uniform legal culture. Taken together, these essays reveal the extraordinary diversity and complexity of the roots of early America's legal culture.
Contributors:
Mary Sarah Bilder
Holly Brewer
James F. Brooks
Richard Lyman Bushman
Christine Daniels
Cornelia Hughes Dayton
David Barry Gaspar
Katherine Hermes
John G. Kolp
David Thomas Konig
James Muldoon
William M. Offutt Jr.
Ann Marie Plane
A. G. Roeber
Terri L. Snyder
Linda L. Sturtz
