Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
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 launched an unprecedented campaign to expel 80,000 Native Americans from their eastern homelands to territories west of the Mississippi River. In a firestorm of fraud and violence, thousands of Native Americans lost their lives, and thousands more lost their farms and possessions. The operation soon devolved into an unofficial policy of extermination, enabled by US officials, southern planters, and northern speculators. Hailed for its searing insight, Unworthy Republic transforms our understanding of this pivotal period in American history.
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An excellently researched and significant account of how white-supremacist ideology and the economic interests of slaveholding states shaped the political and legislative actions of 1830s America that resulted in the expulsion of Native Americans from their lands east of the Mississippi River. Saunt brings new and devastating perspective on the historical impacts of power, caste, race and corruption. In the end, implied or intended, it is hard not to see the tentacles of genocide that play out to the present. An important and resonant work compellingly told.
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Winner of the 2021 Bancroft Prize and the 2021 Ridenhour Book Prize
Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Named a Top Ten Best Book of 2020 by the Washington Post and Publishers Weekly and a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2020
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 launched an unprecedented campaign to expel 80,000 Native Americans from their eastern homelands to territories west of the Mississippi River. In a firestorm of fraud and violence, thousands of Native Americans lost their lives, and thousands more lost their farms and possessions. The operation soon devolved into an unofficial policy of extermination, enabled by US officials, southern planters, and northern speculators. Hailed for its searing insight, Unworthy Republic transforms our understanding of this pivotal period in American history.
—
An excellently researched and significant account of how white-supremacist ideology and the economic interests of slaveholding states shaped the political and legislative actions of 1830s America that resulted in the expulsion of Native Americans from their lands east of the Mississippi River. Saunt brings new and devastating perspective on the historical impacts of power, caste, race and corruption. In the end, implied or intended, it is hard not to see the tentacles of genocide that play out to the present. An important and resonant work compellingly told.
—
Winner of the 2021 Bancroft Prize and the 2021 Ridenhour Book Prize
Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Named a Top Ten Best Book of 2020 by the Washington Post and Publishers Weekly and a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2020
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 launched an unprecedented campaign to expel 80,000 Native Americans from their eastern homelands to territories west of the Mississippi River. In a firestorm of fraud and violence, thousands of Native Americans lost their lives, and thousands more lost their farms and possessions. The operation soon devolved into an unofficial policy of extermination, enabled by US officials, southern planters, and northern speculators. Hailed for its searing insight, Unworthy Republic transforms our understanding of this pivotal period in American history.
—
An excellently researched and significant account of how white-supremacist ideology and the economic interests of slaveholding states shaped the political and legislative actions of 1830s America that resulted in the expulsion of Native Americans from their lands east of the Mississippi River. Saunt brings new and devastating perspective on the historical impacts of power, caste, race and corruption. In the end, implied or intended, it is hard not to see the tentacles of genocide that play out to the present. An important and resonant work compellingly told.
—
Winner of the 2021 Bancroft Prize and the 2021 Ridenhour Book Prize
Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Named a Top Ten Best Book of 2020 by the Washington Post and Publishers Weekly and a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2020