Table of Contents

Preface
Norman Fiering

Introduction
Edward G. Gray

PART I: TERMS OF CONTRACT

Chapter 1. Babel of Tongues: Communicating with the Indians in Eastern North America
James Axtell

Chapter 2. The Use of Pidgins and Jargons on the East Coast of North America
Ives Goddard

PART II: SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

Chapter 3. Pictures, Gestures, Hieroglyphs: “Mute Eloquence” in Sixteenth-Century Mexico
Pauline Moffitt Watts

Chapter 4. Iconic Discourse: The Language of Images in Seventeenth-Century New France
Margaret J. Leahey

Chapter 5. Mapping after the Letter: Graphology and Indigenous Cartography in New Spain
Dana Leibsohn

PART III: THE LITERATE AND THE NONLITERATE

Chapter 6. Continuity vs. Acculturation: Aztec and Inca Cases of Alphabetic Literacy
José Antonio Mazzotti

Chapter 7. Native Languages as Spoken and Written: Views from Southern New England
Kathleen J. Bragdon

Chapter 8. The Mi’kmaq Hieroglyphic Prayer Book: Writing and Christianity in Maritime Canada, 1675–1921
Bruce Greenfield

PART IV: INTERMEDIARIES

Chapter 9. Interpreters Snatched from the Shore: The Successful and the Others
Frances Karttunen

Chapter 10. Mohawk Schoolmasters and Catechists in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Iroquoia: An Experiment in Fostering Literacy and Religious Change
William B. Hart

Chapter 11. The Making of Logan, the Mingo Orator
Edward G. Gray

PART V: THEORY

Chapter 12. Spanish Colonization and the Indigenous Languages of America
Isaías Lerner

Chapter 13. Descriptions of American Indian Word Forms in Colonial Missionary Grammars
Lieve Jooken

Chapter 14. “Savage” Languages in Eighteenth-Century Theoretical History of Language
Rüdiger Schreyer

Select Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

About the Author

Edward G. Gray is Assistant Professor of History at Florida State University.

Reviews

"Although the various essays focus on different sets of issues and perspectives, the unifying theme of linguistic or communicative interaction ties them together in complementary ways ... The editors and authors ... have done an excellent job of avoiding esoteric methodologies ... This is a very acceptable interdisciplinary book that will be essential for anyone interested in European and indigenous contacts in the colonial period."  · H-Net Reviews (H-LatAm) "This collection is a very welcome addition to scholarship on Native-European encounters in the New World ... Both the broad coverage and the interdisciplinary approaches ... will offer future scholars of colonial situations conceptual tools ... a strong and accessible collection that will lead scholars of diverse subfields in very profitable common directions."  · Indigenous Nations Studies "[A] fascinating volume [and] valuable reference for future work."  · American Studies International