The Shock of Colonialism in New England

In The Shock of Colonialism in New England, archaeologist Meghan C. L. Howey uses excavations in the magnificent seventeenth-century frontier colony of the Great Bay Estuary P8bagok in today’s New Hampshire to trace the direct line of European global colonialism to the present crises. Howey shows how this site, outside of the hub of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston, holds overlooked stories of what it meant to live through the shock of colonialism. These stories include an unexpected diversity and dynamism among English colonists, nuanced, multifaceted encounters with Indigenous peoples whose ancestors had thrived here for millennia, and lasting degrading environmental legacies of labor-intensive industries.