Unworthy republic :

Select an Action

Unworthy republic :

Title :

Unworthy republic : the dispossession of Native Americans and the road to Indian territory / Claudio Saunt.

Title:

Unworthy republic :

Author:

Saunt, Claudio

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

xix, 396 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

ISBN:

9780393609844

9780393541564

Production / Publication Information:

New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020]

Summary:

"A masterful and unsettling history of the forced migration of 80,000 Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s. On May 28, 1830, Congress authorized the expulsion of indigenous peoples from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Over the next decade, Native Americans saw their homelands and possessions stolen through fraud, intimidation, and murder. Thousands lost their lives. In this powerful, gripping book, Claudio Saunt upends the common view that "Indian Removal" was an inevitable chapter in US expansion across the continent. Instead, Saunt argues that it was a contested political act-resisted by both indigenous peoples and US citizens-that passed in Congress by a razor-thin margin. In telling the full story of this systematic, state-sponsored theft, Saunt reveals how expulsion became national policy, abetted by southern slave owners and financed by Wall Street. Moving beyond the familiar story of the Trail of Tears, Unworthy Republic offers a fast-paced yet deeply researched account of unbridled greed, government indifference, and administrative incompetence. The consequences of this vast transfer of land and wealth still resonate today"--

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-380) and index.

Language:

English

Geographic Term:

United States -- History -- 1815-1861.

Subject Term:

Indian Removal, 1813-1903.

Indians of North America -- Government relations -- 1789-1869.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	323.1197 SAU	31330008931978	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Amesbury Public Library	323.1197 SAU	32114002576131	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Billerica Public Library	323.1197/SAUN 2020	33934004320884	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Boxford Town Library	323.1197 SAU	32115002093977	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Burlington Public Library	323.1197 SAU	32116003719644	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Carlisle - Gleason Public Library	323.1197 SAU	32117002019093	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Chelmsford Public Library	970.004/SAUN	31480011357792	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Dracut - Moses Greeley Parker Memorial Library	323.1197/SAU	31482002922071	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Georgetown Peabody Library	970.1 SAUNT	32120001319852	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Hamilton-Wenham Public Library	323.1197 SAU	30470001810778	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Lawrence Public Library	323.1197 SAU	31549004824446	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Lowell - Pollard Memorial Library	323.1197 SAU	31481005472977	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Manchester-by-the-Sea Public Library	323.1197 SAU 2020	32124001935071	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Merrimac Public Library	323.11 SAU	32125001321352	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Newburyport Public Library	323.1197 SAU	32128003872455	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library	323.1197 SAUNT	31478010162775	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Rockport Public Library	323.1197 SAUNT	32129002409091	Searching... Unknown
New books	Searching... Tewksbury Public Library	HISTORY / INDIGENOUS / N. AMERICA / SAU	32132003353912	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Topsfield Town Library	323.1197 SAUNT	32133002544535	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Tyngsborough Public Library	323.1197/SAUNT/PB	32137002128330	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Westford - J.V. Fletcher Library	323.1197 SAU	31990004891789	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Wilmington Memorial Library	HISTORY 323.1197 SAU	32136003469289	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington's small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government's auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence. Unworthy Republic reveals how expulsion became national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women, and children.

Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt's deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in U.S. expansion across the continent. Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought relentlessly against the policy, while many U.S. citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation's values. When Congress passed the act by a razor-thin margin, it authorized one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in the modern era, marking a turning point for native peoples and for the United States.

In telling this gripping story, Saunt shows how the politics and economics of white supremacy lay at the heart of the expulsion of Native Americans; how corruption, greed, and administrative indifference and incompetence contributed to the debacle of its implementation; and how the consequences still resonate today.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

University of Georgia history professor Saunt (West of the Revolution) investigates the origins and repercussions of the 1830 Indian Removal Act in this eye-opening and distressing chronicle. Contending that the "state-administered mass expulsion" of 80,000 Native Americans from their homelands was both "unprecedented" and avoidable, Saunt contrasts pro-deportation depictions of indigenous peoples as "impoverished drunks" facing "imminent extinction" with examples of diverse communities interwoven into regional economies in the Great Lakes and Southeast. He incisively recounts congressional debates over removal (Southern slave owners wanted to open up new territories for cotton production; Northern reformers argued that preexisting treaties should be honored) and notes that the legislation passed by a mere five votes in the House of Representatives. When Native Americans refused to emigrate, state officials turned "ordinary property and criminal law into instruments of oppression," Saunt writes, and by the mid-1830s, federal troops were engaged in "exterminatory warfare" against indigenous families. He tallies deaths along the Trail of Tears, millions of dollars in real estate losses, and the spread of slavery into new regions across the South. Saunt presents a stark and well-documented case that Native American expulsion was a political choice rather than an inevitable tragedy. This searing account forces a new reckoning with American history. (Mar.)

Kirkus Review

A powerful, moving argument that the state-sponsored expulsion of the 1830s was a horrendous turning point for the Indigenous peoples in the United States.The systematic expulsion of Native AmericansSaunt (American History/Univ. of Georgia; West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, 2014, etc.) uses "deportation," "expulsion," and "extermination" as more accurate terms than "removal"would not have happened without a law passed by Congress and approved by the executive branch, which occurred at the end of May 1830. The largely Southern-backed measure eagerly endorsed by President Andrew Jackson, who had made the "voluntary" movement of Native peoples west of the Mississippi a defining point of his candidacy, began implementation with money to remove the largely prosperous farming Choctaw of the South westward. These were the first peoples to be expelled under the 1830 law, which allowed their land to be appropriated by whites. It was an expensive and chaotic operation, not to mention horrendously inhumane, as those forced off their land endured miserable conditions, as observed and documented by Alexis de Tocqueville in late 1831. Other expelled peoples included the Senecas of Ohio and the Sauk and Meskwaki on the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, and Saunt poignantly chronicles the movements of the dispossessed. When cholera broke out, it decimated these Indigenous communities on the move. The author incisively examines the various fictions propagated at the time to assuage the national conscience about the dispossessione.g., that Native peoples were a desperate people dying out (many were quite prosperous) and that they were leaving their homes voluntarily. Moreover, the lands west of the Mississippi were not known or mapped, and the conditions were barren and uninhabitable. Saunt estimates the enormous wealth lost by the Indigenous families, the millions expended by the government, and the hideous wealth in land and resources gained by the speculators, colonizers, and cotton barons. The author also notes how these systematic mass deportations "became something of a model for colonial empires around the world."A significant, well-rendered study of a disturbing period in American history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Choice Review

Unworthy Republic is a powerful piece of historical writing. Drawing on careful archival analysis and a rich and insightful historiography, Saunt (Univ. of Georgia) synthesizes an impressive body of scholarship and advances a compelling set of arguments about the US policy of Indian Removal that will inspire the next generation of research. In Saunt's hands, the banality of the term "Indian Removal" is replaced with historically accurate language, incorporating words like "expulsion" and "deportation." Indeed, the US government oversaw the expulsion of upwards of 80,000 indigenous people from their homelands east of the Mississippi River during the early 19th century. It was an expulsion driven by political and economic ambitions, racism, and an expansive colonial mentality. The text thus reveals the interconnectedness of slavery's expanding frontiers and the displacement of entire indigenous nations. The book is at its best and most original when highlighting the webs of investment and speculation that drove the deportation of eastern Native nations to Indian territory (modern-day Oklahoma). Unworthy Republic is written in accessible prose, thoroughly researched, and carefully argued. It is a book that warrants a wide readership and is destined to become a touchstone for future historical debate. Summing Up: Essential. All levels. --Gregory D. Smithers, Virginia Commonwealth University

Library Journal Review

Saunt (American history, Univ. of Georgia) takes a hard, clear look at the ways Natives were dispossessed of their land in the decade after the passage of the 1830 Indian Removal Act. White administrators, legislators, and missionaries couched the deportation of 80,000 Indigenous peoples from Eastern states to territory west of the Mississippi as a so-called humanitarian effort, arguing that Natives would be better off separate from whites. In reality, to coerce them to leave, white Southerners, using laws and terrorism, deliberately dispossessed Natives of real and personal property--and their lives. Expulsion and extermination were prompted by Southerners' desires to expand cotton production and slavery into valuable Native farmland, but, Saunt contends, Southern white supremacist attitudes, secessionist threats, and northern investors' avaricious interests in land speculation were fundamental. Abysmally inadequate funding and planning, combined with Natives' refusal to leave, resulted in inexcusable loss of lives (and money) when Natives were forcefully moved west. For Saunt, this unprecedented and disgraceful state-sponsored mass deportation was not inevitable--a myth upheld by white Americans--and it resulted in a westward-moving militarized line and shameful legacy with enduring issues, yet unaddressed. VERDICT This valuable addition to the scholarship of Native American dispossession and extermination should be read by scholars and general readers alike.--Margaret Kappanadze, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY