Jefferson and the Indians

by Anthony F. C. Wallace
Jefferson and the Indians
Author: Anthony F. C. Wallace
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674044800
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In Thomas Jefferson's time, white Americans were bedeviled by a moral dilemma unyielding to reason and sentiment: what to do about the presence of black slaves and free Indians. That Jefferson himself was caught between his own soaring rhetoric and private behavior toward blacks has long been known. But the tortured duality of his attitude toward Indians is only now being unearthed. In this landmark history, Anthony Wallace takes us on a tour of discovery to unexplored regions of Jefferson's mind. There, the bookish Enlightenment scholar--collector of Indian vocabularies, excavator of ancient burial mounds, chronicler of the eloquence of America's native peoples, and mourner of their tragic fate--sits uncomfortably close to Jefferson the imperialist and architect of Indian removal. Impelled by the necessity of expanding his agrarian republic, he became adept at putting a philosophical gloss on his policy of encroachment, threats of war, and forced land cessions--a policy that led, eventually, to cultural genocide. In this compelling narrative, we see how Jefferson's close relationships with frontier fighters and Indian agents, land speculators and intrepid explorers, European travelers, missionary scholars, and the chiefs of many Indian nations all complicated his views of the rights and claims of the first Americans. Lavishly illustrated with scenes and portraits from the period, Jefferson and the Indians adds a troubled dimension to one of the most enigmatic figures of American history, and to one of its most shameful legacies.

Native America, Discovered and Conquered

by Robert J. Miller
Native America, Discovered and Conquered
Author: Robert J. Miller
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2006-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313071845
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Manifest Destiny, as a term for westward expansion, was not used until the 1840s. Its predecessor was the Doctrine of Discovery, a legal tradition by which Europeans and Americans laid legal claim to the land of the indigenous people that they discovered. In the United States, the British colonists who had recently become Americans were competing with the English, French, and Spanish for control of lands west of the Mississippi. Who would be the discoverers of the Indians and their lands, the United States or the European countries? We know the answer, of course, but in this book, Miller explains for the first time exactly how the United States achieved victory, not only on the ground, but also in the developing legal thought of the day. The American effort began with Thomas Jefferson's authorization of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, which set out in 1803 to lay claim to the West. Lewis and Clark had several charges, among them the discovery of a Northwest Passage—a land route across the continent—in order to establish an American fur trade with China. In addition, the Corps of Northwestern Discovery, as the expedition was called, cataloged new plant and animal life, and performed detailed ethnographic research on the Indians they encountered. This fascinating book lays out how that ethnographic research became the legal basis for Indian removal practices implemented decades later, explaining how the Doctrine of Discovery became part of American law, as it still is today.

Sheheke

by Tracy Potter
Sheheke
Author: Tracy Potter
Publisher:
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:
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"His Mandan name is She-he-ke-shote. In English this means White Coyote. Lewis and Clark called him Chief Big White. Mandan interpreter Rene Jessaume referred to him in French as Le Gros Blanc. To some, he was simply 'the Mandan Chief'. Today, we call him Sheheke, the Mandan Indian who traveled from North Dakota with Lewis and Clark to meet President Thomas Jefferson in Washington, D.C., in 1806. The story of his life has been too long untold. It is the story of a dynamic native culture, a peaceful and welcoming people, and a nation struggling for survival. It is the story of a procession of curious explorers from the north and east. It is the story of one man with the mettle and foresight to embark upon an unprecedented trip that would take him thousands of miles into a foreign land with unfamiliar customs. Sheheke was an ambassador for the Mandan Nation, a consistent friend of the United States, and an important part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In sharing his story, his legacy of kindness, friendship, and courage lives on."--Back cover

Indian Summer

by Thomas Jefferson Mayfield
Indian Summer
Author: Thomas Jefferson Mayfield
Publisher: Heyday Books
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1993
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780930588649
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In 1850, six-year-old Thomas Jefferson Mayfield was adopted by the Choinumne Yokuts of California's San Joaquin Valley. For the next dozen years he slept in their houses, joined them on their daily rounds, and followed them on their annual expeditions by tule boat to Tulare Lake. He spoke their language, wore their style of dress, ate their foods, and in short, lived almost entirely like an Indian. The reminiscences he left behind are unique: the only known account by any outsider who lived among a California Indian people while they were still following their traditional ways. Rich in detail and anecdote, Indian Summer tells how the Choinumne built their houses, navigated their boats, hunted their game, and prepared their foods. It also provides a rare and welcome glimpse into the intimacies of daily life. Enlightening as well are descriptions of the natural landscape of the San Joaquin Valley in the 1850s--of the expansive flowery meadows, the lakes and sloughs, the great forests of valley oaks, the herds of antelope, the surge of salmon that fought their way up the rivers, the flight of geese and ducks that darkened the sky. Abounding in information that anthropologist John P. Harrington described as "rescued from oblivion," Indian Summer portrays with accuracy, zest, and insight the nearly lost and beautiful world of the Choinumne Yokuts and the valley in which they lived. --From publisher description.

Jefferson's Empire

by Peter S. Onuf
Jefferson's Empire
Author: Peter S. Onuf
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2000
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780813922041
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Thomas Jefferson believed that the American revolution was atransformative moment in the history of political civilization. He hoped that hisown efforts as a founding statesman and theorist would help construct a progressiveand enlightened order for the new American nation that would be a model andinspiration for the world. Peter S. Onuf's new book traces Jefferson's vision of theAmerican future to its roots in his idealized notions of nationhood and empire.Onuf's unsettling recognition that Jefferson's famed egalitarianism was elaboratedin an imperial context yields strikingly original interpretations of our nationalidentity and our ideas of race, of westward expansion and the Civil War, and ofAmerican global dominance in the twentiethcentury. Jefferson's vision of an American "empirefor liberty" was modeled on a British prototype. But as a consensual union ofself-governing republics without a metropolis, Jefferson's American empire would befree of exploitation by a corrupt imperial ruling class. It would avoid the cycle ofwar and destruction that had characterized the European balance ofpower. The Civil War cast in high relief thetragic limitations of Jefferson's political vision. After the Union victory, as thereconstructed nation-state developed into a world power, dreams of the United Statesas an ever-expanding empire of peacefully coexisting states quickly faded frommemory. Yet even as the antebellum federal union disintegrated, a Jeffersoniannationalism, proudly conscious of America's historic revolution against imperialdomination, grew up in its place. In Onuf's view, Jefferson's quest to define a new American identity also shaped his ambivalentconceptions of slavery and Native American rights. His revolutionary fervor led himto see Indians as "merciless savages" who ravaged the frontiers at the Britishking's direction, but when those frontiers were pacified, a more benevolentJefferson encouraged these same Indians to embrace republican values. AfricanAmerican slaves, by contrast, constituted an unassimilable captive nation, unjustlywrenched from its African homeland. His great panacea: colonization. Jefferson's ideas about race revealthe limitations of his conception of American nationhood. Yet, as Onuf strikinglydocuments, Jefferson's vision of a republican empire--a regime of peace, prosperity, and union without coercion--continues to define and expand the boundaries ofAmerican national identity.

The Indian World of George Washington

by Colin Gordon Calloway
The Indian World of George Washington
Author: Colin Gordon Calloway
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 648
Release: 2018
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0190652160
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The Indian World of George Washington offers a fresh portrait of the most revered American and the Native Americans whose story has been only partially told.

Reincarnation Beliefs of North American Indians

by Warren Jefferson
Reincarnation Beliefs of North American Indians
Author: Warren Jefferson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2008
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN:
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Soul Journeys, Metamorphoses, and Near-Death Experiences. This book provides an in-depth look at spiritual experiences about which very little has been written. Belief in reincarnation exists not only in India but in most small tribal societies throughout the world, including many Indian groups in North America. The stories and commentary presented here are well researched and drawn from anthropological records and other reliable sources of information. Learn about a Winnebago shaman's initiation, the Cherokee's Orpheus myth, the story of "A Journey to the Skeleton House" from the Hopi, the Inuit man who lived the lives of all animals, the Ghost Dance, and other extraordinary accounts.

Survival and Regeneration

by Edmund Jefferson Danziger, Jr.
Survival and Regeneration
Author: Edmund Jefferson Danziger, Jr.
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2017-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0814343333
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Survival and Regeneration captures the heritage of Detroit's colorful Indian community through printed sources and the personal life stories of many Native Americans. Survival and Regeneration captures the heritage of Detroit's colorful Indian community through printed sources and the personal life stories of many Native Americans. During a ten-year period, Edmund Jefferson Danziger, Jr. interviewed hundreds of Indians about their past and their needs and aspirations for the future. This history is essentially their success story. In search of new opportunities, a growing number of rural Indians journeyed to Detroit after World War II. Destitute reservations had sapped their physical and cultural strength; paternalistic bureaucrats undermined their self-respect and confidence; and despairing tribal members too often sound solace in mind-numbing alcohol. Cut off from the Bureau of Indian Affairs services, many newcomers had difficulty establishing themselves successfully in the city and experienced feelings of insecurity and powerlessness. By 1970, they were one of the Motor City's most "invisible" minority groups, so mobile and dispersed throughout the metropolitan area that not even the Indian organizations knew where they all lived. To grasp the nature of their remarkable regeneration, this inspiring volume examines the historic challenges that Native American migrants to Detroit faced - adjusting to urban life, finding a good job and a decent place to live, securing quality medical care, educating their children, and maintaining their unique cultural heritage. Danziger scrutinizes the leadership that emerged within the Indian community and the formal native organizations through which the Indian community's wide-ranging needs have been met. He also highlights the significant progress enjoyed by Detroit Indians - improved housing, higher educational achievement, less unemployment, and greater average family incomes - that has resulted from their persistence and self-determination. Historically, the Motor City has provided an environment where lives could be refashioned amid abundant opportunities. Indians have not been totally assimilated, nor have they forsaken Detroit en masse for their former homelands. Instead, they have forged vibrant lives for themselves as Indian-Detroiters. They are not as numerous or politically powerful as their black neighbors, but the story of these native peoples leaves no doubt about their importance to Detroit and of the city's effect on them.