In the continuously expanding field of southeastern Native American history, historian Michelle LeMaster has left an indelible mark in the field with her new monograph, Brothers Born of One Mother: British–Native American Relations in the Colonial Southeast. LeMaster states that the “colonial Southeast provides a unique locus for evaluating the role of gender in shaping Anglo-Indian contact” (6), since within this period there was no clearly dominant culture. This “trilateral power struggle among European empires and the presence of substantial Indian populations” (187) required accommodation, understanding and diplomatic relations between very unique societies. These cultures, nominally separated between native and British within LeMaster's text, had differing, yet similar, views on gender that would shape the interactions between these cultures. Very well written and masterfully researched, LeMaster's work is an incredibly insightful discussion of how gender has shaped the colonial Southeast.

Throughout the monograph, LeMaster focusses on the use of gender within the realms of diplomacy, family, trade, warfare and intermarriage. Instead of focussing primarily on one gender or the other, LeMaster deftly handles the differences and similarities between the British and their native allies throughout the Southeast in their interpretation of both male and female roles in society. What is unique in this monograph is that LeMaster continuously points to the fact that the two sides held fairly similar views on gender roles. Men were considered warriors and providers in both societies and the women were considered caretakers at home as well as running the family aspect within their respective societies. What is unique is the difference in how these roles were conducted. These disparities created a unique situation within diplomatic relations between natives and the British. LeMaster notes that these “‘creative misunderstandings’ allowed for the maintenance of peaceful relations for long periods of time,” yet these “miscommunications could also undermine the negotiations when one side failed to live up to the other's expectations” of gender and familial roles (16).

LeMaster does not stop with the use of strict gender roles but also discusses in depth the use of different familial roles in both cultures. These roles would play a major part in the “fictive kin ties” that LeMaster notes were used by natives and the British within diplomatic relations. The roles of younger and older brother are particularly of note within LeMaster's work, as the British and natives saw this relationship very differently yet continuously as the fictive familial tie between the communities. LeMaster notes that as long as the British and natives “could ignore or gloss over such differences, the system could function reasonably well” (24), but as LeMaster notes, this was not always the case.

While LeMaster's primary focus is the use of gender by both British colonists and southeastern Native Americans, some of the best work conducted by her concerns the misconception of gender by the two cultures. Repeatedly LeMaster utilizes records discussing interactions between the British and one of either the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, Catawba or one of many other tribes and discovers that even “after nearly seventy years of contact, neither the British nor their native allies had figured out how to avoid cultural misunderstandings” (66). In one of many examples posed by LeMaster, a crucial point centers on the construction of forts within the Cherokee nation that preceded the Anglo-Cherokee War. The British considered these forts as a way to assert sovereignty over the Cherokee by “setting themselves into the role of defender of Indian women and children” (111). Yet LeMaster notes that when the Cherokee requested these forts, it was more likely that they “had another, perhaps more important, reason for favoring forts: they desperately desired trade goods” (112). This misconception of relational values brought on by the assumption of a big-and-little-brother relationship between Britain and many of the native towns within the Southeast led to continuous conflicting understandings that LeMaster masterfully articulates throughout the monograph.

In Brothers Born of One Mother, Michelle LeMaster has created a phenomenal monograph concerning the role that gender and kinship played in the colonial Southeast. In doing so, LeMaster has confronted an exceptionally difficult and complex subject and successfully created a prominent work within the field of Southeast Native American history. Well written and exceptionally researched, LeMaster's monograph should come highly recommended to anyone interested in Southeast colonial, Native American or early American gender studies.