First published 2020
In May 1830, Washington launched what officials called a humanitarian mission to relocate Native Americans from eastern lands to territories beyond the Mississippi River. The federal government promised systematic, rational management of this massive undertaking. Over the following decade, the operation descended into catastrophe. Thousands of Native Americans died under federal oversight. Fraud, intimidation, and violence stripped thousands more of their possessions and ancestral homes. Claudio Saunt draws on firsthand accounts and extensive federal records to examine how this deportation policy emerged and why it failed so disastrously. He argues that Indian Removal was not inevitable American expansion but a contested political decision designed to open new lands for slavery and strengthen southern political power. Indigenous communities resisted fiercely while many American citizens condemned the policy as a betrayal of national principles. Congress barely passed the act, authorizing one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in modern history. Saunt reveals how white supremacist politics and economics drove the expulsion, how corruption and administrative incompetence created a humanitarian disaster, and how these consequences continue to shape America today.
Genres: history, 20th-century, american, 21st-century, native-americans, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction, social-justice
Setting: America, Mississippi River
Period: 1830s
396 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton & Company
Content warnings: colonialism, racism