How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier
Banner's well-documented history addresses the question of how repeated land sales drove Indians west, with a careful detailing of transactions from the 1600s to the 1900s. Did the Indians think they were agreeing only to "share resources," and were the English aware of the Indians' increasing poverty as a result of these one-sided transactions? The author describes how land sales changed from contracts between private parties to treaties between sovereign nations after the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, followed by the convenient perception of Native Americans not as owners of their land but merely as occupants. This philosophical shift culminates in the landmark Supreme Court decision of 1823 declaring that Indian lands are actually owned by the states and the federal government, a decision Banner calls the "final nail in the coffin of . . . Indian property rights." He concludes with Native success in recent years in obtaining reparations for their land, due to the government's admittance that the seizure of these lands was illegal when it was practiced, which is Banner's thesis in a nutshell.Deborah DonovanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.