Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
Audiobook11 hours
Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
Written by Claudio Saunt
Narrated by Stephen Bowlby
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington's small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government's auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence.
Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt's deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in US expansion across the continent. Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought relentlessly against the policy, while many US citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation's values. When Congress passed the act by a razor-thin margin, it authorized one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in the modern era, marking a turning point for native peoples and for the United States.
Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt's deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in US expansion across the continent. Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought relentlessly against the policy, while many US citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation's values. When Congress passed the act by a razor-thin margin, it authorized one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in the modern era, marking a turning point for native peoples and for the United States.
Editor's Note
National Book Award nominee…
A finalist for the nonfiction category, “Unworthy Republic” is the gripping story of the first mass deportation in United States history. Author Claudio Saunt exposes the racist policies and economics behind the violent removal of Native Americans from their homelands in 1830, when 80,000 men, women, and children living in the East were forced to move to Western territories. Saunt traces the repercussions of that deadly expulsion that continue to haunt the country today.
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Reviews for Unworthy Republic
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
12 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5History written by the brutal conqueror is not factual. Without facts about our work now we will not be able to build on the efforts of the good humans who did not buy the rationalizations of those greedy and violent people who insisted these wars were inevitable and therefore justifiable. It’s very well written and researched. It’s painful but very good history.