Books by Larry Eldridge

What, if anything, did enslaved black women in the South have in common with powerful female leaders in Iroquois society? Were female tavern keepers in the backcountry of North Carolina any more free than nuns and sisters in New France religious orders? This title deals with these questions.

Using the court records of every American colony that existed before 1700 and an analysis of over 1,200 seditious speech cases sifted from those records, this book shows how colonists experienced a dramatic expansion during the seventeenth century of their freedom to criticize government and its officials.