Disinherited: The Lost Birthright of the American Indian

by Dale Van Every

SCUFFING, EDGEWEAR, CHAFING AND DINGS ON COVERS AND SPINE. INSIDE COVERS AND PAGES CLEAN AND INTACT.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Race, Native Americans

302 pages

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Born in 1896, American author Dale Van Every turned out a number of volumes on American history, including a biography of Charles Lindbergh. Van Every was also a busy playwright in the 1920s; his Broadway offering Telling the World was filmed in 1929, whereupon the writer set up shop in Hollywood. His screenplays include the literary adaptations Trader Horn (1931) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In 1937, he shared an Oscar nomination for the film version of Kipling's Captains Courageous. In 1940, Dale Van Every produced the Paramount actioner Rangers of Fortunes, then returned to screenwriting, remaining in this field until 1957. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this volume when it was originally published. I got inspired to go back to it again after reading The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. This may seem a strange pairing, but the Smekday novel introduces young readers to the idea of an alien invasion leading to the entire human race being exiled within their own planet. One of the main characters is a man called Chief, a Native American who harbors a secret about the invaders and has some important things to say about being relegated to the fringe of his own existence.

Disinherited... was the book from which I first learned of the Trail of Tears, the complexity of Native American society and the story of Sequoyah. This book gives an account of the removal of the Eastern tribes during the early history of the United States. It is a shameful part of American history, and given the current internet memes about replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, a good argument for why the man should be relegated to toilet paper instead of honored as an American hero. Native American activism was fueled for a brief time in the 20th Century, and books such as Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee gave the American public some insight into the reasons for what would soon happen in confrontations between the US government an those activists. These books were published nearly a half-century ago, and the effects of the history they portray are still reverberating in America. As Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart..., said: "Americans who have always looked westward when reading about this period should read this book facing eastward." Disinherited shows us where our shame began.

[Rosanne Bittner · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books to read re: history of the Cherokee. Heartbreaking.

[ExtremeBibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book recounts in intricate and occasionally heart-breaking detail the events and political machinations that lead to the infamous "Trail of Tears" (or "The Removal" as it is referred to in this book). The myriad of factors that lead to the eviction of the Eastern Cherokee from their ancestral homeland in the Appalachians is discussed at length. Racism on both sides, short-sighted and occasionally moronic political and governmental decisions by local, state, and national leaders, the horrific results of epidemics, and that age-old detriment, greed for land and money, all contributed to this genocide and all are thoroughly covered in this account. Van Every tells the story of the doomed Natives without resorting either to victim blaming or to minimizing. The monumental (and well nigh miraculous) achievement of Sequoyah in single-handedly creating a writing system for the Cherokee is alone worth reading.

[Pedro · Rating 2 out of 5]

It provides an accurate portrayal of the Cherokee removal, but fails to provide either a reliable well examined thesis or an interesting and engrossing read. The book is also bogged down in generalizations such as "the white man is this" or "the Indian is that."