Contrary Neighbors
Subtitle: Southern Plains and Removed Indians in Indian Territory (Civilization of the American Indian Series)
Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr
Published: August 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 292
ISBN-13: 9780806132518
Subjects: Southern States; Native Americans - Southeast; History - General History; History: American; United States - State & Local; Relocation; Native American; History; Indian Territory; Indians of North America
First sentence: While I was working on my book The Caddo Chiefdoms, I came to grasp the sheer magnitude of the diaspora of Native American peoples from the eastern part of the United States onto the southern prairie-plains that took place between 1780 and 1840.
Description: "Contrary Neighbors examines relations between Southeastern Indians who were removed to Indian Territory in the early nineteenth century and Southern Plains Indians who claimed this area as their own. These two Indian groups viewed the world in different ways. The Southeastern Indians, primarily Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, were agricultural peoples.

By the nineteenth century they were adopting American "civilization": codified laws, Christianity, market-driven farming, and a formal, Euroamerican style of education. By contrast, the hunter-gatherers of the Southern Plains - the Comanches, Kiowas, Wichitas, and Osages - had a culture based on the buffalo. They actively resisted the Removed Indians "invasion" of their homelands.".

"The Removed Indians hoped to lessen Plains Indian raids into Indian Territory by "civilizing" the Plains peoples through diplomatic councils and trade. But the Southern Plains Indians were not interested in "civilization" and saw no use in farming. Even their defeat by the U.S. government could not bridge the cultural gap between the Plains and Removed Indians, a gulf that remains to this day."--BOOK JACKET.