Groundless: Rumors, Legends, and Hoaxes on the Early American Frontier

The fascinating—and troubling—story of powerful rumors that circulated and influential legends that arose in early America.

Why did Elizabethan adventurers believe that the interior of America hid vast caches of gold? Who started the rumor that British officers purchased revolutionary white women’s scalps, packed them by the bale, and shipped them to their superiors? And why are people today still convinced that white settlers—hardly immune as a group to the disease—routinely distributed sma...