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Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory | Claudio Saunt
9 posts | 7 read | 1 reading | 7 to read
A masterful and unsettling history of Indian Removal, the forced migration of Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s and the state-sponsored theft of their lands. 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 Washingtons small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal governments 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, Saunts 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 nations 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.
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Davidtk20
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Pickpick

Unworthy Republic discusses the expulsion of native tribes, mostly the Indians in Southeastern US to west of the Mississippi. Claudio examines the fierce debate in Congress on the “Indian Problem” and how the removal of Indians from their native lands was essential for slavery, as planter-politicians need new fertile lands to grow cotton.

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Chittavrtti
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July reads, read.

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Chittavrtti
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Learning from history.

DrexEdit I read this earlier this year. It was really good although heart-breaking. 3y
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jmofo
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Many reviews say this book is dry, possibly due to the detailing of the bureaucracy that was behind the forceful removal of whole communities from the land they called home. I was appreciative of that Saunt laid out the cultural and political climate and how closely tied the atrocities of slavery and the genocidal approach to native communities were, albeit different. The section about cholera was moving. I‘m glad I read it. I am good with dry.

GingerAntics Saunt can be a bit dry, but he‘s a good scholar. 3y
14 likes1 comment
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jmofo
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I‘m taking advantage of a rare weekend day off to start listening to this account of my nation‘s past.

GingerAntics Good luck in there. 3y
jmofo Thanks. Any time spent with Andrew Jackson and his ilk is not a good time. (edited) 3y
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Hooked_on_books
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Mehso-so

Saunt explores in detail the forced removal of Native Americans from their land across many tribes and many despicable acts. This has great information, but I found it rather dry, causing my focus to wander.

GingerAntics I‘m still working my way through another of Saunt‘s books. I don‘t remember any of it (but the pictures and maps) from when I read it for a class. Saunt is AMAZINGLY dry, but from a scholarship standpoint it‘s very well done. It‘s just a matter of combing your way through it. 3y
SamAnne This is on my TBR list. 3y
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DrexEdit
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This is a must read, but it is a tough tough book to read. It took me a few weeks to get through it because the stories are infuriating & heartbreaking in equal share. About the forced removal of indigenous populations to west of the Mississippi. Andrew Jackson was a real asshole, but in this book we meet all the mean little people & bureaucrats who carried out his policies & did it badly with no empathy or humanity. ⬇

DrexEdit As the book jacket copy says, “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.“

Interspersed with stories from the tribes all taken from primary sources that will literally make you cry.
4y
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Currey
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80,000 indigenous people forcibly removed from their homes and made to travel to new land west of the Mississippi, dying from exhaustion, starvation and exposure to freezing weather on the way. The ones left behind hunted and killed or herded like animals. All to turn their black prairie bottom land into cotton plantations and slave labor camps. Told in such detail that the bureaucratic mess, the diseases, the greed feels present tense not past.

Cinfhen Powerful review. Thanks for sharing 4y
20 likes1 comment
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TracyReadsBooks
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A lot of nonfiction and a little Star Wars in this week‘s #bookhaul. I‘ve heard great things about the tagged book so maybe it first? Of course I‘ve also heard great things about The Victorian City...and who wouldn‘t want to read about ways of looking at the novel?!? But then, KENOBI!!! Oh, who am I kidding. We all know they are going right into my ever expanding TBR stacks. But I do look forward to reading them...eventually...