Northern Indian Removal: An Unfamiliar History

FAIN: FT-57818-10

John Patrick Bowes
Eastern Kentucky University (Richmond, KY 40475-3102)

"Northern Indian Removal" addresses the foundations and consequences of American expansion and Indian removal policy within the Great Lakes region in the early nineteenth century. Over the course of eight chapters I will deal exclusively with the process of removal among the northern tribes. The impact of diverse colonial interactions within the Great Lakes region made a significant difference in the manner in which northern Indians handled both American expansion and the enactment of removal policy. I will present an assessment of northern removal that will provide insight into not only into those colonial experiences of individual tribes but also into the place and perception of American Indians in the antebellum United States. This work will appeal to scholars of both American Indian and American history because it responds to a gap in the historiography of Indian removal and places the experiences of Great Lakes Indians within the national narrative of American history.

Associated Products

Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal (Book)
Title: Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal
Author: John P. Bowes
Abstract: The history of Indian removal has often followed a single narrative arc, one that begins with President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830 and follows the Cherokee Trail of Tears. In that conventional account, the Black Hawk War of 1832 encapsulates the experience of tribes in the territories north of the Ohio River. But Indian removal in the Old Northwest was much more complicated—involving many Indian peoples and more than just one policy, event, or politician. In Land Too Good for Indians, historian John P. Bowes takes a long-needed closer, more expansive look at northern Indian removal—and in so doing amplifies the history of Indian removal and of the United States. Bowes focuses on four case studies that exemplify particular elements of removal in the Old Northwest. He traces the paths taken by Delaware Indians in response to Euro-American expansion and U.S. policies in the decades prior to the Indian Removal Act. He also considers the removal experience among the Seneca-Cayugas, Wyandots, and other Indian communities in the Sandusky River region of northwestern Ohio. Bowes uses the 1833 Treaty of Chicago as a lens through which to examine the forces that drove the divergent removals of various Potawatomi communities from northern Illinois and Indiana. And in exploring the experiences of the Odawas and Ojibwes in Michigan Territory, he analyzes the historical context and choices that enabled some Indian communities to avoid relocation west of the Mississippi River. In expanding the context of removal to include the Old Northwest, and adding a portrait of Native communities there before, during, and after removal, Bowes paints a more accurate—and complicated—picture of American Indian history in the nineteenth century. Land Too Good for Indians reveals the deeper complexities of this crucial time in American history.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://http://www.oupress.com/ECommerce/Book/Detail/2098/land%20too%20good%20for%20indians
Primary URL Description: This is a link to the book at the University of Oklahoma Press website.
Secondary URL: http://https://www.amazon.com/Land-Too-Good-Indians-Directions/dp/0806152125/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Secondary URL Description: This is a link to the book on Amazon.com
Access Model: Published book available for purchase.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-0806152127
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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