My project addresses the crucial roles cloth and dress played in creating relationships between Native Americans and Europeans in two important regions: the Mid-Atlantic and the Southeastern portions of North America. From Florida to New Amsterdam, Native Americans spoke up about cloth. They talked about it, traded for it, and used it in endless variations to create visual, economic, and vocal bonds with each other and with their European neighbors. The economic, political, and social effects of textile exchange tie directly to larger questions of cultural production.  Unlike guns, rum, beads or knives, cloth and clothing functioned metaphorically and conditionally as the situation required. An offering of cloth could forge ties of kinship between the giver and receiver. It could act as payment for services rendered and a gift of thanks to a valued ally.  It could be demanded as tribute or taken as spoils of war. Its very production could be an act of transgression or subjection. Once acquired, cloth and clothing offered the wearer and viewer a wide range of identity choices. Close examination of treaty discussions, trading situations, contractual negotiations, the archaeological record and many other forms of private and public exchange between Europeans and Indians indicate the crucial metaphorical role of fabric in early America. While other trade goods had important functions of their own, none carried the symbolic and indisputable weight of textiles.