Much as we may think of the Revolution as the first inherently American war, settlers and natives had already been embroiled in 250 years of struggle. Focusing on events that are all but forgotten today, Cormac O'Brien relates how Spanish conquistadores, Puritan ministers, Amerindian sachems, mercenary soldiers, and ordinary farmers traded and clashed across a landscape of constant, often violent, change. More than 100 particularly choice period illustrations and vintage maps accompany O'Brien's 18 accounts of such events as Anne Hutchinson's 1637 defense of religious liberty, the establishment of the Five Nations of the Iroquois, the English acquisition of Manhattan, and George Washington's vital contribution to the French and Indian War.