DISTANT RELATIONS: How My Ancestors Colonized North America

In her first book, Canadian writer Freeman makes history personal in a study that is part genealogical research, part history and part memoir. Wondering aloud what part her ancestors played in the colonization of North America—especially the efforts to dispossess Native Americans of their lands—Freeman launches herself on a prolonged journey of self- and family discovery. From her researches she learns that two Puritan ministers, John Eliot, the so-called "Apostle to the Indians," and Thomas Weld, both lie in the branches of her family tree. While Eliot insisted on gently converting the Native Americans to Christianity and, to some extent, respecting their rights, Weld exercised an uncompromising orthodoxy and intolerance in his relations with them. Another relative Freeman discovers is fur trader Thomas Stanton, who apparently gained the confidence of Native Americans and treated them with affection and respect. Freeman narrates the stories of these and other relatives, using them as the canvas on which to paint the larger history of colonial times. Her approach poses some problems, though. While retelling broader historical events through the eyes of individuals involved makes history come alive, her accounts of her ancestors' lives are filled with uncertainty ("I don't know if he felt that way"; "I can never know if he would have done this"). In addition, Freeman's historical narrative descends into moralizing about treatment of Native Americans and reparations. By the end, her study, for all its promise, offers little more than one woman's self-exoneration for a history by which she has always "felt burdened." Maps. (Nov. 15)