• Covered with Night

  • A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America
  • By: Nicole Eustace
  • Narrated by: Laural Merlington
  • Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (35 ratings)

Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.
Covered with Night  By  cover art

Covered with Night

By: Nicole Eustace
Narrated by: Laural Merlington
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.79

Buy for $25.79

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

On the eve of a major treaty conference between Iroquois leaders and European colonists in the distant summer of 1722, two White fur traders attacked an Indigenous hunter and left him for dead near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, this act of brutality set into motion a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations that challenged the definition of justice in early America.

In Covered with Night, leading historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the crime and its aftermath, bringing us into the overlapping worlds of White colonists and Indigenous peoples in this formative period. Frantic efforts to resolve the case ignited a dramatic, far-reaching debate between Native American forms of justice - centered on community, forgiveness, and reparations - and an ideology of harsh reprisal, unique to the colonies and based on British law, which called for the killers' swift execution.

In charting the far-reaching ramifications of the murder, Covered with Night - a phrase from Iroquois mourning practices - overturns persistent assumptions about "civilized" Europeans and "savage" Native Americans. A necessary work of historical reclamation, it ultimately revives a lost vision of crime and punishment that reverberates down into our own time.

©2021 Nicole Eustace (P)2021 Tantor

Featured Article: Challenging Racial Bias in True Crime Stories


In cases involving Black and Brown victims, the reporting of true crime is its own kind of injustice. Bad things happen to Black and Brown women every day. But no one is talking about the color of their hair and eyes, their job, their education, or how much they are loved by family and community. Discover a growing gamut of podcasts that runs from deep-dive single case investigations to compilations focusing on missing and murdered Black women.

What listeners say about Covered with Night

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    17
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    16
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

YES! I GET IT! I've read history before - JUST STOP!!!!! British settlers were arrogant jerks!! Aaaaaaaargh

REALLY - the story speaks for itself - as do most from this age - The settlers coming over from Britain were (for the most part, by far) arrogant, egotistical, violent idiots. The Indians, despite their ritual violence (which was quite apalling) were by FAR more humane and more cIvilized. The snarky comments are annoying and insulting to the reader.

Good GOD.

Anyone too stupid to understand this just by listebibg tp a chronological account is not going to bother reading this.

I'm really really really regretting getting the audiobook. I would be far happier skimming....

Driving me nuts.

One or two tongue in cheek comments are fine - Guelzo does this well, even Gordon Wood and Baylin gets their shots in here and there...

I feel like if you took out the snark and the repetitive foreshadowing (i get it. Things will not go down as the settlers expect. 6 DARN CHAPTERS of color commentary interspersed with "even now... John doesn't grasp the severity of his situation ..."

***sigh*** I want to know what happens and it's npt even organized in a way that allows me to skip forward because there's sooooo much sidetracking.

All interesting info that I want to learn, but it feels like for each sentence of actual content there are 3 sentences of attitude.....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Reads like a text book

I was looking forward to reading this, but I didn't like the 3rd person style and the character names became a distraction for me---it felt like a text book. I was having difficulty getting into and following the story. SO, I switched to listening to the book... the narrator was monotonous and so metered I wanted to scream! It may be a great bit of history, but it's so tedious with details is not enjoyable. Sadly, not what I thought it would be.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful