1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910778095703321

Autore

VanDevelder Paul

Titolo

Savages and scoundrels [[electronic resource] ] : the untold story of America's road to empire through Indian Territory / / Paul VanDevelder

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven, : Yale University Press, c2009

ISBN

9786612351716

0-300-14250-1

1-282-35171-0

1-282-08934-X

9786612089343

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (256 p.)

Disciplina

323.1197

Soggetti

Indians of North America - Government relations

Indians of North America - Land tenure

United States Territorial expansion History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- contents -- INTRODUCTION -- ONE: REDEEMING EDEN -- TWO: SAVAGES AND SCOUNDRELS -- THREE: WHITE MEN IN PARADISE -- FOUR: PIONEERS OF THE WORLD -- FIVE: THE GREAT SMOKE -- SIX: MONSTERS OF GOD -- APPENDIX: TREATY OF FORT LARAMIE (HORSE CREEK), 1851 -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

What really happened in the early days of our nation? How was it possible for white settlers to march across the entire continent, inexorably claiming Native American lands for themselves? Who made it happen, and why? This gripping book tells America's story from a new perspective, chronicling the adventures of our forefathers and showing how a legacy of repeated betrayals became the bedrock on which the republic was built. Paul VanDevelder takes as his focal point the epic federal treaty ratified in 1851 at Horse Creek, formally recognizing perpetual ownership by a dozen Native American tribes of 1.1 million square miles of the American West. The astonishing and shameful story of this broken treaty-one of 371 Indian treaties signed during the



eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-reveals a pattern of fraudulent government behavior that again and again displaced Native Americans from their lands. VanDevelder describes the path that led to the genocide of the American Indian; those who participated in it, from cowboys and common folk to aristocrats and presidents; and how the history of the immoral treatment of Indians through the twentieth century has profound social, economic, and political implications for America even today.