Certain quotes, it seems, are simply too good for historians of early America to pass up. We invoke Thomas Jefferson on slavery's role in turning young Euro-Americans into tyrants and call upon Miantonomi for the ways New England's colonists imperiled Native Americans' land-use systems. Because statements of this sort are both persuasive and pervasive, they can dominate our thinking about a given subject, imposing a framework that can be very difficult to escape. For scholars concerned with the linguistic aspect of the European invasion of America, the requisite quote has become the 1492 response made by the bishop of Avila to Queen Isabella of Spain when her highness, upon receiving the first grammar of a contemporary vernacular language, asked what purpose a Spanish grammar might serve: "Language is the perfect instrument of empire." The bishop's statement pithily links expression and expansion; that he had the grace to utter this in 1492 is merely icing on the cake, lagniappe for historians intent on discussing the Columbian encounter and its aftermath. Given the ubiquity of the bishop's epigram, Edward Gray's willingness to tackle the issue of language in early America without mentioning it suggests that he intends to push his subject in a different direction. Thus, for his epigram, Gray has chosen to quote not Avila's bishop but Samuel Johnson-"Languages are the pedigree of nations," a choice which efficiently shifts the topic under discussion from language-as-agent ("instrument") to language-as-attribute ("pedigree"). Language-as a tool of empire, as a marker of difference, as a domesticating force-is firmly entrenched in our histories of exploration and colonization. As the citation of Johnson suggests, however, Gray asks a new question of language. He investigates not what language did or how it did it, but rather how the Europeans reacted when confronted with the tremendous linguistic diversity-the seemingly endless national pedigrees-that characterized Native life in North America. In other words, Gray asks his readers to shift their focus, to consider not the function of "language" but rather the presence and