Abstract
Ethan A. Schmidt’s The Divided Dominion: Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia covers some well-trodden ground: the early years of the Jamestown settlement, the Anglo-Powhatan wars, the establishment of Virginia’s tobacco elite, and Bacon’s Rebellion. With such scope and just 185 pages of text (excluding the index and bibliography), The Divided Dominion makes no claim to have uncovered new source material or to have explored previously slighted territory. Instead, Schmidt’s book claims to recast our understanding of the period by arguing that “to unite dissatisfied Virginians across class, geographic, political, and social boundaries” required “a call for the extermination of all Indians.