Engaging Children in Vast Early America

Introduction

Julia M. Gossard and Holly N.S. White

Section 1: Centering Unfree Children in Vast Early America

1. Into the Household of Joseph Bigelow: Growing up Unfree in Colonial New England

Caylin Carbonell

2. Marronnage and Childhood in Colonial Haiti

Crystal Nicole Eddins

3. Capturing Youth: Reproductive Labor and the Medicalization of Black Girlhood in the Early Nineteenth-Century Spanish Caribbean

Farren Yero

Section 2: Uncovering Childhood in Native North America        

4. “To Have Their Children Trained Up in English Schools”: Native American Childhood and Education in the Early American South

Brooke M. Bauer

5. A Mixture of Nations: English Captive Children and Food in the Eighteenth-Century Northeast

Carla Cevasco

6. “From Their Children Born and Those Yet in the Womb”: Children as Political Actors in Southeastern Native American Petitions, 1600–1730

Bradley J. Dixon

Section 3: Who Got to Be a Child in Vast Early America

7. From Girls to Mothers: Children in French Canada

Julia M. Gossard

8. Children in the Margins: Enslaved Children in the Livingston Family Papers

Nicole Saffold Maskiell

9. Sending Children to Alta California: The Lorenzana and Híjar-Padrés Expeditions

Ea Nicole Madrigal

Biography

Julia M. Gossard is Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Utah State University. She is co-editor of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth and the author of Young Subjects: Children, State-Building, and Social Reform in the Eighteenth-Century French World (2021).

Holly N. S. White is an Adjunct Professor of History at William & Mary. She is co-editor of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth and author of Negotiating American Childhood: Age-based Laws and the Illusion of Protection in the Early United States (2025).

"Young people – Indigenous, African, and European -- played pivotal yet overlooked roles in the early history of the Americas.  As active agents who performed essential labor, cultural intermediaries who bridged societal divides, and bearers and innovators in cultural practices, the young were instrumental in the colonizing and nation-building process.  Challenging adult-centric perspectives that marginalize the young, this groundbreaking collection offers a more inclusive narrative that not only honors their memory, but provides a fresh lens on the social dynamics and cultural exchanges that shaped life in the Western hemisphere from the 17th to the early 19th centuries.  Highly attentive to race, class, and gender, the authors draw on previously untapped sources to recover the experiences and historical significance of young people in the collision of cultures that created a new world in the early Americas."

Steven Mintz, Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, US, and the author of Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood

"Taking an approach that places the diverse experiences of youth in the Americas into a single frame to argue for their centrality in foundational colonial projects, the book’s chapters provide a series of discrete, accessible, and original contributions to the history of childhood. Even more, the chapters serve as object lessons on the methodological creativity that has become a hallmark of the field."

Bianca Premo, Distinguished University Professor of History, Florida International University, US

"Every society is full of children and yet our histories are almost entirely about men (and sometimes women, mostly white and sometimes people of color). This exciting and important collection challenges us not only to locate but to center children and childhood in the critical field of Vast Early America. Revealing and impressive, their research gives us new ways to think about this formative period."

Karin Wulf, Director, John Carter Brown Library and Professor of History at Brown University, US