How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the FrontierHarvard University Press, 2009 M06 30 - 352 páginas Between the early seventeenth century and the early twentieth, nearly all the land in the United States was transferred from American Indians to whites. This dramatic transformation has been understood in two very different ways--as a series of consensual transactions, but also as a process of violent conquest. Both views cannot be correct. How did Indians actually lose their land? Stuart Banner provides the first comprehensive answer. He argues that neither simple coercion nor simple consent reflects the complicated legal history of land transfers. Instead, time, place, and the balance of power between Indians and settlers decided the outcome of land struggles. As whites' power grew, they were able to establish the legal institutions and the rules by which land transactions would be made and enforced. This story of America's colonization remains a story of power, but a more complex kind of power than historians have acknowledged. It is a story in which military force was less important than the power to shape the legal framework within which land would be owned. As a result, white Americans--from eastern cities to the western frontiers--could believe they were buying land from the Indians the same way they bought land from one another. How the Indians Lost Their Land dramatically reveals how subtle changes in the law can determine the fate of a nation, and our understanding of the past. |
Contenido
1 | |
10 | |
2 Manhattan for Twentyfour Dollars | 49 |
3 From Contract to Treaty | 85 |
4 A Revolution in Land Policy | 112 |
5 From Ownership to Occupancy | 150 |
6 Removal | 191 |
7 Reservations | 228 |
8 Allotment | 257 |
Epilogue | 291 |
Notes | 297 |
Acknowledgments | 337 |
338 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier Stuart Banner Vista previa limitada - 2007 |
Términos y frases comunes
acquired agriculture allotment American Indian Andrew Jackson Anglo-American boundary British Cambridge ceded Cherokees claim colonial governments colonial period colonists commissioners Cong Congress conquest Continental Congress Creeks Dawes Act declared dian early England English ernment European farming federal government fee simple force frontier Georgia government’s governor grant Henry Knox History imperial government Indi Indian Affairs Indian policy Indian property rights Indian Removal Indian tribes Jackson John Johnson land purchasing land sales lawyers London M'Intosh Marshall Massachusetts ment Mississippi Native nineteenth century North America North American Review North Carolina ownership parcels possession preemption rights private purchasing Proclamation of 1763 purchase land recognized removal reported reservations Revolution right of conquest right of occupancy sell land sellers settlement settlers sold sovereignty speculators Supreme Court territory Thomas Thomas Gage tion tract transactions trespassing tribe members United University of Oklahoma University Press Virginia Washington William York