The Indian world of George Washington : the first President, the first Americans, and the birth of the nation

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Calloway, Colin G. (Colin Gordon), 1953-

Physical Description:

xviii, 621 pages, 8 pages unnumbered color plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Summary:

"An authoritative, sweeping, and fresh new biography of the nation's first president, Colin G. Calloway's book reveals fully the dimensions and depths of George Washington's relations with the First Americans."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Learning curves: Virginia's Indian country -- The Ohio Company and the Ohio Country -- Into Tanaghrisson's world -- Tanaghrisson's war -- Braddock and the limits of empire -- Frontier defense and a Cherokee alliance -- Frontier advance and a Cherokee war -- The other revolution: Confronting the Indian boundary -- "A good deal of land." -- The question of Indian allies -- Town destroyer -- Killing Crawford -- Building a nation on Indian land -- The first President and the first Americans: An Indian policy for the new nation -- Courting McGillivray -- The greatest Indian victory -- Philadelphia Indian diplomacy -- Achieving empire -- Transforming Indian lives -- A death and a non-death.

Subject Term:

Indians of North America -- Government relations

Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1750-1815

Indians of North America -- History -- 18th century

Publication Info:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]

Subject:

Indians of North America -- Government relations

Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1750-1815

Indians of North America -- History -- 18th century

United States -- History -- French and Indian War, 1754-1763

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783

Washington, George, 1732-1799 -- Relations with Indians.

Vashington, Dzhordzh, 1732-1799

Waszyngton, Jerzy, 1732-1799

Washington, Georg, 1732-1799

Uashingktoien, Geeorg, 1732-1799

Uashingtʻn, Gēorg, 1732-1799

װאשינגטאן, דזשארדזש, 1732־1799

ジョージワシントン, 1732-1799

Washington, G. (George), 1732-1799

Indians of North America -- Government policy

French and Indian War, 1754-1763

United States -- History -- French and Indian War, 1755-1763

American Revolution, 1775-1783

American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783

Revolution, American, 1775-1783

Revolutionary War, American, 1775-1783

War of the American Revolution, 1775-1783

SAILS ISBN:

9780190652166

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Dighton Public Library	323.1197 CAL	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fairhaven-Millicent	970.5 CAL 2018	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library	323.1197 CAL 2018	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Rehoboth - Blanding Free PL	323.11 CAL	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Swansea Public Library	970.5 C	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Taunton Public Library	973.0497 C135I	3RD FLOOR STACKS	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

A biography of America's founding father and those on whose land he based the nation's future George Washington dominates the narrative of the nation's birth, yet American history has largely forgotten what he knew: that the country's fate depended less on grand rhetorical statements of independence and self-governance than on land - Indian land. While other histories have overlooked the central importance of Indian power during the country's formative years, Colin G. Calloway here gives Native American leaders their due, revealing the relationship between the man who rose to become the most powerful figure in his country and the Native tribes whose dominion he usurped.In this sweeping new biography, Calloway uses the prism of Washington's life to bring focus to the great Native leaders of his time - Shingas, Tanaghrisson, Bloody Fellow, Joseph Brant, Red Jacket, Little Turtle - and the tribes they represented: the Iroquois Confederacy, Lenape, Miami, Creek, Delaware; in the process, he returns them to their rightful place in the story of America's founding. The Indian World of George Washington spans decades of Native American leaders' interaction with Washington, from his early days as surveyor of Indian lands, to his military career against both the French and the British, to his presidency, when he dealt with Native Americans as a head of state would with a foreign power, using every means of diplomacy and persuasion to fulfill the new republic's destiny by appropriating their land. By the end of his life, Washington knew more than anyone else in America about the frontier and its significance to the future of his country.The Indian World of George Washington offers a fresh portrait of the most revered American and the Native Americans whose story has been only partially told. Calloway's biography invites us to look again at the story of America's beginnings and see the country in a whole new light.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Calloway (The Victory with No Name), a Dartmouth professor of history and Native American studies, uses George Washington's life as a lens for uncovering forgotten history in this detailed account of interactions between Native and white Americans during the latter half of the 18th century. Following Washington from his early days as a land surveyor to his colonial service in the French and Indian War and his later command of the Continental Army command, Calloway highlights the complex and often ambiguous relationship between indigenous politics and the young republic. In particular, the desire to buy and sell Native land with impunity shaped key moments in Washington's political life: a British proclamation limiting land purchases pushed him toward patriot resistance, and treaties forged under his presidency sought to expand the nation westward into Native territory. Calloway does not shy away from detailing Washington's violence toward Native communities, including an infamous command to torch Iroquois cornfields, and he includes the perspectives of Native Americans whenever possible. Even so, it's Washington who emerges as the most fully-formed character; the Native leaders Calloway mentions, however intriguing, receive less attention, suggesting another book awaits writing on the subject. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

As a young man, George Washington regularly interacted with Indians, both on individual and tribal levels. As his military and political career blossomed, those relationships continued and intensified. Historian Calloway illustrates how those relationships, both in war and peace, played a critical role in the foundation and early development of the American republic. Before his public career, Washington surveyed, bought, and speculated on Indian lands along the foothills of the Appalachians, fully aware that their ancestral claims would eventually be sacrificed to whites who had formal title. During the French and Indian War and the War of Independence, Washington fought and formed alliances with Indians. As president, he again fought them but accepted their status as internal sovereign nations and generally treated Indian leaders with the respect due to foreign dignitaries. Yet he never wavered from his policy to expand the areas of white settlement, viewing Indians and their land claims as obstacles to be overcome. Calloway has written an important and original interpretation of critical years in the formation of federal policies toward the claims and rights of Native Americans.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2018 Booklist

Choice Review

The Indian World of George Washington is a major contribution to the literature on George Washington and Native American history. Calloway's deeply researched analysis, written in accessible prose, reveals the centrality of indigenous people in Washington's life and thinking. In 20 gripping chapters, Calloway (Dartmouth) presents a picture of Native Americans as strategically skillful and a Washington who was often, as the author writes in the introduction, "out of his depth in a complex world of rumors." Indeed, Washington struggled to grasp the nuances of indigenous diplomacy despite the fact that Native Americans, and their land, occupied so much of his mental energy. Land is a major theme in Calloway's analysis. Be it George Washington the land speculator, the military man the Iroquois knew as "Town Destroyer," or the president of a new republic who worried incessantly about the future of the US while it remained surrounded by sovereign Indian nations, battles over land were a constant in Washington's life. The Indian World of George Washington underscores that to truly understand the history of the early republic and the life of the nation's first president, one must grapple with the significance of Native American history. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Gregory D. Smithers, Virginia Commonwealth University

Kirkus Review

An expansive history of our first president and his interactions with Indian countries and how "the future he envisioned would be realized at the expense of the people who lived there."During George Washington's presidency, the bulk of the federal budget was spent on wars against Indians and their affairs. After beginning with this jolt, Calloway (History and Native American Studies/Dartmouth Coll. The Victory with No Name: The Native American Defeat of the First American Army, 2014) delivers a detailed, impressively researched history of white-Indian relations during Washington's lifetime. An ambitious young man in the 1750s, Washington already owned shares in the Ohio Company, which claimed immense tracts mostly in present-day Ohio. He made numerous official trips to assert his claims and those of the British, oppose the rival French, and recruit Indian support. All failed, culminating with Gen. Edward Braddock's disastrous defeat in 1755. Historians traditionally describe this as a painful education that contributed to Washington's later greatness, but Calloway maintains that ignorance of Indian culture and bad military advice bear major responsibility for the debacles. Many tribes sided with Britain during the Revolution, and Washington responded with cruel, almost genocidal campaigns that laid waste cities and farms and killed everyone in sight. Calloway concludes that "Washington spent a lifetime turning Indian homelands into real estate for himself and his nation," and as president, he worked hard to further this agenda. It involved several brutal frontier wars, described ably by Calloway; however, readers will also have to wade through tedious diplomacy, negotiations, treaties, and bickering. At his death, Washington owned tens of thousands of acres of former Indian land, and frontier tribes were in steady retreat. Calloway is no revisionist. Historians agree that Washington's treatment of Indians was marked by self-interest, ignorance, and racism, but they prefer to emphasize areas where he did better.Insightful and illuminating but relentlessly squirm-inducing. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

This is "not another biography of -Washington," as Calloway (history, -Dartmouth Coll.; A Scratch of the Pen) writes in the introduction. In fact, it is much more important than that. Calloway masterfully executes a journey down a path through history that links George Washington's own military and presidential history with the Native tribes who were vital to his success, whose stories are rarely told. Calloway acknowledges that Washington can be both a paragon of Republican virtue and a man who knew that expanding America's frontier would come at the expense of Native lives. The author does not seek to separate those two images of Washington, but rather to combine them in a way that illuminates a more complete picture of early America as well as the untold story of Native leaders such as Shingas, Bloody Fellow, and Little Turtle, in addition to leaders from the Iroquois Confederacy, Lenape, Creek, and Delaware tribes. VERDICT Essential reading in Native American studies, as well as for those seeking a deeper understanding of George Washington and the Native populations of the early republic.-Jessica Holland, Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Individual Native Americans in the George Washington Story	p. xi
Author's Note	p. xv
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
1 Learning Curves
Chapter 1 Virginia's Indian Country	p. 19
Chapter 2 The Ohio Company and the Ohio Country	p. 45
Chapter 3 Into Tanaghrisson's World	p. 66
Chapter 4 Tanaghrisson's War	p. 84
Chapter 5 Braddock and the Limits of Empire	p. 102
Chapter 6 Frontier Defense and a Cherokee Alliance	p. 124
Chapter 7 Frontier Advance and a Cherokee War	p. 148
2 The Other Revolution
Chapter 8 Confronting the Indian Boundary	p. 171
Chapter 9 "A good deal of Land"	p. 191
Chapter 10 The Question of Indian Allies	p. 215
Chapter 11 Town Destroyer	p. 235
Chapter 12 Killing Crawford	p. 260
Chapter 13 Building a Nation on Indian Land	p. 283
3 The First President and the First Americans
Chapter 14 An Indian Policy for the New Nation	p. 321
Chapter 15 Courting McGillivray	p. 346
Chapter 16 The Greatest Indian Victory	p. 378
Chapter 17 Philadelphia Indian Diplomacy	p. 397
Chapter 18 Achieving Empire	p. 422
Chapter 19 Transforming Indian Lives	p. 451
Chapter 20 A Death and a Non-Death	p. 477
Abbreviations	p. 493
Notes	p. 497
Index	p. 581

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Choice Review

Kirkus Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents