Surviving genocide :

Title :

Surviving genocide : native nations and the United States from the American Revolution to bleeding Kansas / Jeffrey Ostler.

Title:

Surviving genocide :

Author:

Ostler, Jeffrey

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

ix, 533 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

ISBN:

9780300218121

Production / Publication Information:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2019]

Contents:

Introduction: An Icy River and a Raging Sea -- Part One: DISEASE, WAR, AND DISPOSSESSION. 1 Trajectories, 1500s-1763 ; 2 Wars of Revolution and Independence, 1763-1783 ; 3 Just and Lawful Wars, 1783-1795 ; 4 Survival and New Threats, 1795-1810 ; 5 Wars of 1812 -- Part Two: PREPARING FOR REMOVAL. 6 Nonvanishing Indians on the Eve of Removal, 1815-1830 ; 7 West of the Mississippi, 1803-1835 -- Part Three: REMOVAL. 8 Removal and the Southern Indian Nations, 1830-1840s ; 9 Removal and the Northern Indian Nations, 1830-1850s ; 10 Destruction and Survival in the Zone of Removal, 1840s-1860 ; 11 The Name of Removal -- Conclusion: Historians and Prophets -- Appendix 1. The Question of Genocide in U.S. History -- Appendix 2. Population Estimates by Nation.

Summary:

In the first part of this sweeping two-volume history, Jeffrey Ostler investigates how American democracy relied on Indian dispossession and the federally sanctioned use of force to remove or slaughter Indians in the way of U.S. expansion. He charts the losses that Indians suffered from relentless violence and upheaval and the attendant effects of disease, deprivation, and exposure. This volume centers on the eastern United States from the 1750s to the start of the Civil War. An authoritative contribution to the history of the United States' violent path toward building a continental empire, this ambitious and well-researched book deepens our understanding of the seizure of indigenous lands, including the use of treaties to create the appearance of Native consent to dispossession. Ostler also carefully documents the resilience of Native people, showing how they survived genocide by creating alliances, defending their towns, and rebuilding their communities.

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 461-504) and index.

Language:

English

Subject Term:

Indians, Treatment of -- North America -- History.

Indians of North America -- Crimes against.

Indians of North America -- Violence against.

Indians of North America -- Government relations.

Indians of North America -- Legal status, laws, etc.

Genocide -- United States -- History.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	970.00497 OST	31330008766945	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Methuen - Nevins Memorial Library	973.04 OST	31548003265866	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The first part of a sweeping two-volume history of the devastation brought to bear on Indian nations by U.S. expansion

"An elegant, organized narrative of the United States' dispossession of Native lands east of the Mississippi. . . . A remarkable book in its breadth and scope."--Ashley Riley Sousa, Canadian Journal of History

"Intense and well-researched, . . . ambitious, . . . magisterial. . . . Surviving Genocide sets a bar from which subsequent scholarship and teaching cannot retreat."--Peter Nabokov, New York Review of Books

In this book, the first part of a sweeping two-volume history, Jeffrey Ostler investigates how American democracy relied on Indian dispossession and the federally sanctioned use of force to remove or slaughter Indians in the way of U.S. expansion. He charts the losses that Indians suffered from relentless violence and upheaval and the attendant effects of disease, deprivation, and exposure. This volume centers on the eastern United States from the 1750s to the start of the Civil War.

An authoritative contribution to the history of the United States' violent path toward building a continental empire, this ambitious and well-researched book deepens our understanding of the seizure of Indigenous lands, including the use of treaties to create the appearance of Native consent to dispossession. Ostler also documents the resilience of Native people, showing how they survived genocide by creating alliances, defending their towns, and rebuilding their communities.

Reviews (2)

Choice Review

American Indian nations and communities tenaciously resisted implacable American determination to destroy them and take their lands. Ostler offers ample evidence of a pattern of determined extirpation of any Native nations that opposed American absorption. Genocide was American policy. Indian survival tactics were tenacious, varied, and evolving. Ostler's scholarship sweeps across Indian country east of the Mississippi and into the "zone of removal." Quotations from Native and American sources drive home evidence of genocide. Detailed, often tribe by tribe, summaries explain how perfidious Americans met Native responses. The narrative includes estimates of Native losses both direct and indirect, of the inter- and intra-tribal conflicts engendered by American expansion, and of the brutality of American force. Valuable information about tribal responses to the new order enhance Ostler's scholarship. He echoes most scholars with exposure of the hypocrisy of American justifications for the determined, consistent assaults on American Indian nations. This is an exceptional synthesis of current research presented convincingly. It is a major contribution to Native American and United States studies. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Gregory Omer Gagnon, emeritus, Loyola University of New Orleans College of Law

Library Journal Review

This first book in a planned two-volume set examines how the policies of the federal government, violently enforced by its military, dispossessed American Indian nations of their homelands and caused population decline. Ostler (history, Univ. of Oregon; The Lakotas and the Black Hills) explores the interactions of specific American Indian nations with the U.S. government, showing that each relationship was unique. The common thread was that the government's endgame for all was the same. Throughout, the author tracks demographic data for individual nations, allowing readers to weigh the impact of specific policies or treaties. For example, the horrific impact of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 is apparent through the decline in the Cherokee population between 1832 and 1839; an era that saw their forced migration westward on the Trail of Tears. Ostler uses Bleeding Kansas on the eve of the Civil War as his stopping point. This is done to point out that while national attention was drawn to sporadic violence among whites in Kansas, far more Kanza people were suffering in the same region, but their plight was ignored. -VERDICT A groundbreaking tour de force that will appeal to anyone interested in American history or Native American studies.-John R. Burch, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Note on Terminology	p. ix
Introduction: An Icy River and a Raging Sea	p. 1
Part 1 Disease, War, and Dispossession
1 Trajectories, 1500s-1763	p. 11
2 "Wars of Revolution and Independence, 1763-1783	p. 44
3 Just and Lawful Wars, 1783-1795	p. 82
4 Survival and New Threats, 1795-1810	p. 123
5 Wars of 1812	p. 151
Part 2 Preparing for Removal
6 Nonvanishing Indians on the Eve of Removal, 1815-1830	p. 183
7 West of the Mississippi, 1803-1835	p. 215
Part 3 Removal
8 Removal and the Southern Indian Nations, 1830-1840s	p. 247
9 Removal and the Northern Indian Nations, 1830-1850s	p. 288
10 Destruction and Survival in the Zone of Removal, 1840s-1860	p. 327
11 The Name of Removal	p. 359
Conclusion: Historians and Prophets	p. 375
Appendix 1 The Question of Genocide in U.S. History	p. 383
Appendix 2 Population Estimates by Nation	p. 388
Notes	p. 407
Bibliography	p. 461
Acknowledgments	p. 505
Index	p. 509

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Reviews (2)

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Library Journal Review

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