First published 2014
While Americans remember 1776 for independence and Washington's river crossing, Claudio Saunt uncovers the forgotten dramas unfolding across the rest of North America that same year. Spanish colonists founded San Francisco and disrupted native California communities. Russian hunters invaded Alaska seeking sea otters and destroyed Aleut villages. British fur traders pushed from Hudson Bay into the continent's interior, transforming boreal forests forever. Indigenous peoples pursued their own strategies amid these changes. Creek Indians sailed the Caribbean to trade with Cuba. The Osages seized territory west of the Mississippi, overpowering Spanish settlements. Sioux warriors captured the Black Hills for the first time, claiming what would become their sacred homeland. Saunt connects these distant events into a single story spanning from the Aleutian Islands to the Gulf Coast, reaching across oceans to European capitals. His research reveals how imperial officials tried controlling lands they barely understood while native nations fought for advantage in a changing world. The book shows 1776 as the birth year of two nations, with the indigenous one destined to win its final victory at Little Bighorn a century later.
Genres: history, non-fiction, native-american, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction, indigenous-peoples
Setting: Alaska, California, Cuba, Gulf Coast, Hudson Bay, Little Bighorn, Mississippi, North America, San Francisco
Period: 1776, 19th-century, 20th-century
288 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton & Company
Content warnings: colonialism