Next to Kin: Native Americans and Friendship in Early America

Native Americans attached deep and varied meanings to friendship. Often inseparable from the structures and obligations of kinship, friendship influenced both informal and formal relationships within Native communities and between Indians, Europeans, and Africans. Boulware is particularly interested in how the cultural meanings of friendship (both Indian and European) influenced personal relationships and inter-group alliances, and how ideas about friendship and its obligations contributed to the violence that erupted between individuals and communities.