In contrast to most accounts of Puritan-Indian relations, New England Frontier argues that the first two generations of Puritan settlers were neither generally hostile toward their Indian neighbors nor indifferent to their territorial rights. Rather, American Puritans - especially their political and religious leaders - sought peaceful and equitable relations as the first step in molding the Indians into neo-Englishmen.

When accumulated Indian resentments culminated in the war of 1675, however, the relatively benign intercultural contact of the preceding fifty-five-year period rapidly declined. With a new introduction updating developments in Puritan-Indian studies in the last fifteen years, this third edition affords the reader a clear, balanced overview of a complex and sensitive area of American history.