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Unworthy Republic

Audiobook
Nonfiction: History, Politics
Unabridged   11.5 hour(s)
Publication date: 03/31/2020


National Book Award Longlist 2020
Washington POst 10 Best Books of the Year 2020

Unworthy Republic

The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory

Available from major retailers or BUY FROM AMAZON
Audio CD ISBN:9781684578061
Digital Download ISBN:9781684578054

Summary

A masterful and unsettling history of “Indian Removal,” the forced migration of Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s and the state-sponsored theft of their lands.

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Product Description

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.

Reviews/Praise

“A significant, well-rendered study of a disturbing period in American history.” —Kirkus Starred Review

"Narrator Stephen Bowlby's empathetic style smartly lets the stories' damning evidence speak for itself. He seamlessly captures the bureaucratic ineptitude and cruel governmental indifference underlying President Andrew Jackson's horrific plan to send the southeastern tribes to less than equal territories west of the Mississippi, which resulted in thousands of dead (native people and federal soldiers).” -AudioFile

Author Bio

Claudio Saunt is the Richard B. Russell Professor in American History at the University of Georgia. He is the author of award-winning books, including A New Order of Things; Black, White, and Indian; and West of the Revolution. He lives in Athens, Georgia.