Frederick E. Hoxie, Ronald Hofman, Peter J. Albert, eds.. Native Americans and the Early Republic. United States Capitol Historical Society. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999. x + 370 pp. $49.50, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8139-1873-0.

Reviewed by Wendy St. Jean

Published on H-SHEAR (September, 2000)

Native Americans and the Early American Re‐ Loyal Shawnees," R. David Edmunds examines public, 1780s-1840s factors such as acculturation and the desire for This book grows out of a 1993 symposium peace that led Black Hoof and most other sponsored by the United States Capitol Historical Shawnees to favor accommodation with the U.S. Society entitled "Native Americans and the Early government. Joel W. Martin's "Cultural Contact Republic." The editors maintain that Native Amer‐ and Crises in the Early Republic" considers some icans were a focal point of American politics and ways that Cherokees and Creeks preserved their culture in the early national period. While real In‐ distinctiveness in the face of dramatic challenges dians stood in the way of white Americans' expan‐ to their cultural integrity posed by missionaries sion, fctional Native Americans dominated con‐ and other civilization agents. He suggests that structions of a newly emergent American identity. metis leaders shielded their less acculturated In three decades, the United States defeated Na‐ neighbors from "an imposed order of threatening tive Americans, squeezed them onto substandard values" (235). Although Edmunds and Martin ana‐ lands, and pushed them to the margins of Ameri‐ lyze Creek and Shawnee resistance movements, can society. the topics of Native American religion and nation‐ alism warrant further investigation. Martin's es‐ Some major themes run through the essays. say is the best example in the book of an attempt One theme is the diversity of peoples that charac‐ to uncover Native Americans' motives, traditions, terized nineteenth-century America. The authors and beliefs. carefully diferentiate between the views and in‐ terests of frontiersmen and eastern leaders; be‐ Second, the authors pay great attention to cal‐ tween acculturated metis and more traditional- culated misrepresentations about Native Ameri‐ minded Indian individuals; between Christian be‐ can societies. In "The Continuing Revolution in In‐ lievers and non-believers. In "'A Watchful Safe‐ dian Country," Colin Calloway defates "the fction guard to Our Habitations': Black Hoof and the that all Indians had fought for the British in the H-Net Reviews

Revolution" (31). According to Calloway, this myth 1783-1794," Daniel Richter looks at how Senecas' "justifed massive dispossession of Native Ameri‐ attitudes toward and terms for Pennsylvanians cans in the early republic, whatever their role in changed as they lost hope that whites would rec‐ the war" (31). Calloway's general overview of Indi‐ ognize their territorial borders and hunting and an alliances and diplomacy convincingly demon‐ fshing rights. In "Native Women in the Early Re‐ strates that the war for American Independence public," Theda Perdu analyzes the role of Euro- divided Native American nations and communi‐ Americans' accounts of Native American women, ties. Daniel H. Usner's "Iroquois Livelihood and particularly their seemingly "uncivilized" or un‐ Jefersonian Agrarianism," explores the impact on feminine gender roles and behavior, in molding Native Americans of another myth perpetuated by early U.S. Indian policy. self-interested whites. Jefersonians knowingly Reginald Horsman's "Indian Policy of an 'Em‐ disseminated the false notion "that Indian soci‐ pire for Liberty'" reconstructs the intellectual un‐ eties of the eastern woodlands, such as the Iro‐ derpinnings of U.S. Indian policy in the early re‐ quois, needed to become agricultural despite public. He fnds that an amalgam of republican abundant evidence that agriculture had long been ideology, Enlightenment values, and land greed an integral part of their economic life" (201). Poli‐ gave shape to policies that made the dispossession cymakers used the images associated with hunt‐ of Indians more orderly and efcient. Although ing to liken Indians to savages and thus strip them treaties and annuity payments facilitated the ad‐ of their agricultural lands. vance of frontier settlements, they did not prevent Other contributors examine the popular im‐ sporadic warfare. Native Americans continued to agery of Native Americans that grew alongside in‐ "resist by war demands for their lands" (53). creasingly punitive U.S. Indian policies. In Vivien This provocative and informative collection Green Fryd's analysis of the Indian paintings that of essays represent a good beginning, if not the adorn the Capitol's rotunda, she concludes that last word, in the forging of a synthesis of Native these "images buttressed the removal philosophy" American history in the early national period. Fu‐ by perpetuating stereotypes about white Ameri‐ ture compilations would include more treatment ca's superiority (329). Elise Marienstras's "The of Indian-Black relations, community and family, Common Man's Indian" examines literary portray‐ and identity formation. The essays make signif‐ als of Indians. She argues that narratives of Indi‐ cant headway in the attempt to link Native Ameri‐ an violence served to create a counter image of can history to broader themes in American histo‐ Americans and legitimated expansionist policies, ry such as the Market Revolution, republican ide‐ including warfare. ology, American popular culture and nationalism. Richard White's "Fictions of Patriarchy: Indi‐ However, this efort to ft Indian history into ans and Whites in the Early Republic" relates the mainstream historical scholarship may be respon‐ dissolution of middle ground diplomacy to the sible for the book's primary weakness, its greater changing imagery used in U.S.-Indian treaty nego‐ emphasis on whites' attitudes and policymaking, tiations. He fnds that after military defeat, Native at the expense of greater elaboration of Native Americans lost control of the fctional metaphors Americans' ideas and worlds. that described their relations with the U.S. gov‐ Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights re‐ ernment. Americans now portrayed Indians as served. This work may be copied for non-proft children who lacked the maturity to participate in educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ negotiations that concerned their future. In "Onas, thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ the Long Knife: Pennsylvanians and Indians, tact [email protected].

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Citation: Wendy St. Jean. Review of Hoxie, Frederick E.; Hofman, Ronald; Albert, Peter J., eds. Native Americans and the Early Republic. H-SHEAR, H-Net Reviews. September, 2000.

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