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Critical Issue
The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians
The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics.
This account of Congress's Indian Removal Act of 1830 focuses on the plight of the Indians of the Southeast--Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles--who were forced to leave their ancestral lands and relocate to what is now the state of Oklahoma. Revealing Andrew Jackson's central role in the government's policies, Wallace examines the racist attitudes toward Native Americans that led to their removal and, ultimately, their tragic fate.
This account of Congress's Indian Removal Act of 1830 focuses on the plight of the Indians of the Southeast--Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles--who were forced to leave their ancestral lands and relocate to what is now the state of Oklahoma. Revealing Andrew Jackson's central role in the government's policies, Wallace examines the racist attitudes toward Native Americans that led to their removal and, ultimately, their tragic fate.
160 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 19, 2019
Read as research for a paper for Native American history class.
This is a short book but it has a ton of information in it. It has a great general overview of the differences between the Northern and Southern tribes. The book doesn't pull any punches on why the tribes were forced from their lands and those that were for and against the removal. I like that it does touch on the removal of all of the tribes not just the Trail of Tears. The tribes in the north's journey were just as horrific. This book was suggested to me by my professor as research for my paper on the Great Lakes Indians.
This is a short book but it has a ton of information in it. It has a great general overview of the differences between the Northern and Southern tribes. The book doesn't pull any punches on why the tribes were forced from their lands and those that were for and against the removal. I like that it does touch on the removal of all of the tribes not just the Trail of Tears. The tribes in the north's journey were just as horrific. This book was suggested to me by my professor as research for my paper on the Great Lakes Indians.
May 1, 2020
This book was illuminating to say the least.
The United States, in its national curriculum regarding the treatment of Indians (1785-1900), has purposely mislead students. Glossed over in textbooks and history lessons, and purposely hazed, the true maliciousness of the United States during this time period has been cast into the light for all to see.
The political establishment that enacted these injustices were guilty of the following:
1. Defying the United States constitution
2. Defying legitimate treaties signed
3. Created treaties under duress and with those who had no tribal authority
4.Fraud
4. gross negligence leading to death (Trail of tears, and other forced migrations )
5. construction of a police state (Oklahoma reservation employees dictated all things in tribal life )
6. Coercion of land sales by means of duress (failure to allow self governance)
7. Using "science" to rationalize slavery of blacks and Indians, and land grabbing
Theodore Frelinghuysen said this,
"Sir, if we abandon these aboriginal proprietors of our soil, these early allies and adopted children of our forefathers, how shall we justify it to our country?...How shall we justify this trespass to ourselves?...Let us beware how, by oppressive encroachments upon the sacred privileges of our Indian neighbors, we minister to the agonies of future remorse."
Apparently the strategy of the United States was to hide this remorse with poor schooling and textbooks that skewed the truth and placed the establishment in moral favor. An example of the non-remorse shown is Andrew Jackson, the executive behind the Removal act, on our current twenty dollar bill.
I implore my fellow Americans to read this book and to understand the text within. As modern Americans we enjoy land that was stolen in horrific fashion and with highly flawed ideology. All this by an entity that claims both in historical and modern context to be the moral guide of the entire world. Was coexistence not possible with these eastern tribes, and fair treaties not possible? We must all do our due diligence to be more aware of the history of ourselves, and of the history of the establishment that claims absolute authority over the lives of its citizens.
Footnote: There were many admirable historical figures and members of the establishment who were against the 'Removal Act' and countless other mistreatments.
The United States, in its national curriculum regarding the treatment of Indians (1785-1900), has purposely mislead students. Glossed over in textbooks and history lessons, and purposely hazed, the true maliciousness of the United States during this time period has been cast into the light for all to see.
The political establishment that enacted these injustices were guilty of the following:
1. Defying the United States constitution
2. Defying legitimate treaties signed
3. Created treaties under duress and with those who had no tribal authority
4.Fraud
4. gross negligence leading to death (Trail of tears, and other forced migrations )
5. construction of a police state (Oklahoma reservation employees dictated all things in tribal life )
6. Coercion of land sales by means of duress (failure to allow self governance)
7. Using "science" to rationalize slavery of blacks and Indians, and land grabbing
Theodore Frelinghuysen said this,
"Sir, if we abandon these aboriginal proprietors of our soil, these early allies and adopted children of our forefathers, how shall we justify it to our country?...How shall we justify this trespass to ourselves?...Let us beware how, by oppressive encroachments upon the sacred privileges of our Indian neighbors, we minister to the agonies of future remorse."
Apparently the strategy of the United States was to hide this remorse with poor schooling and textbooks that skewed the truth and placed the establishment in moral favor. An example of the non-remorse shown is Andrew Jackson, the executive behind the Removal act, on our current twenty dollar bill.
I implore my fellow Americans to read this book and to understand the text within. As modern Americans we enjoy land that was stolen in horrific fashion and with highly flawed ideology. All this by an entity that claims both in historical and modern context to be the moral guide of the entire world. Was coexistence not possible with these eastern tribes, and fair treaties not possible? We must all do our due diligence to be more aware of the history of ourselves, and of the history of the establishment that claims absolute authority over the lives of its citizens.
Footnote: There were many admirable historical figures and members of the establishment who were against the 'Removal Act' and countless other mistreatments.
February 12, 2018
A politically correct account and history of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that deprived the Cherokee among other native groups in the Southeast United States of their lands and moved them to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. A copy of the Act is included.
March 5, 2018
I liked this book because it was very factual. This book was all about the Indian Removal Act of 1830. I appreciated reading about Andrew Jackson because I always found him fascinating.
September 3, 2024
So glad I got to spend my Labor Day weekend reading this light and fluffy book
June 30, 2023
A short, student-friendly book about the politics and policy of Indian removal in the early 19th century. A lack of citations limits the book as a good critical source. The book suffers also in its tragic framing of this historical legacy of removal policy.
November 10, 2024
I read this book for a history research paper. This was not the story I learned in my American History H.S. class but should have.
August 31, 2024
Cherokee Removal
I was interested in the history of Cherokee where I spend my summers in Ellijay, GA. I think it is a well written history of the Trail of Tears. You certainly my learn to dislike President Jackson who promulgated the expulsion. It is a sad story in which there are few historical books that cover this story.
I was interested in the history of Cherokee where I spend my summers in Ellijay, GA. I think it is a well written history of the Trail of Tears. You certainly my learn to dislike President Jackson who promulgated the expulsion. It is a sad story in which there are few historical books that cover this story.
January 24, 2019
Excellent, but sad look at the rationale, events, treaties & actions leading up to the Indian Removal Act brought to bear by President Andrew Jackson and Congress in 1830 and the resulting tragedies of the removal itself.
October 16, 2025
Read for antebellum America. Best explanation of the coerced and forced movement of native Americans during Jackson’s campaign, term, and time after office. Draws equally on the experiences of 5-6 tribes.
October 17, 2023
Read for antebellum america class
March 30, 2024
Informative.
October 16, 2025
#schoolread
May 2, 2009
Anthony Wallace’s book, The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians is an examination of the Indian removal policies of the early 19th century under President Andrew Jackson. In his text, Wallace attempts to frame the removal of Native Americans from the Eastern United States within anthropological and historical contexts. Wallace organizes his narrative of the removal in four sections: pre-removal Native American culture, motives for removal, and the process and legacy of physically moving tribes to reservations west of the Mississippi. Wallace’s organization creates an argumentative structure with which he can explain and refute the motives of removal policy.
Though Wallace’s work makes many contributions to the understanding of the motives behind Jacksonian Indian policy, it also has many flaws which make the narrative difficult to read. Principally, Wallace seems to be an apologist for Indian removal policy, which severely affects the tone of his writing. A review on the back cover praises Wallace’s “calmness of tone”, though this “calmness” does not seem to exist in his writing. Wallace frequently invokes inflammatory language in his descriptions, particularly in reference to white settlers. Such terms include “redneck frontiersmen” (36), “intruders” (75), and frequent use of adjectives denoting trespassing, outright theft and “covert” or deceptive practices. While some of these adjectives make be historically accurate in application, their use detracts from the objectivity of the work. Rather, the work seems more to be an emotional rant than an even-handed historical work.
Wallace also takes the approach in this writing that Native Americans were the victims of greedy and deceptive white people. The danger of portraying Native Americans in this tone of victimization is that it strips them of their agency in the whole affair. Constantly invoking the label of victimization seems to be counterproductive to Wallace’s previous arguments in the work about Native American efforts to acculturate and later to actively resist removal from their homes. In a way, it makes them powerless pawns in the hands of a manipulative player of the game of manifest destiny.
Wallace also makes use of the same 19th century ethnographical “civilization” hierarchy that he condemns in his arguments against removal and reform from the stance that Native American cultures were already advanced. These arguments asserting the advanced nature of North American Native American cultures play directly into the same hierarchy that Wallace condemns 19th century ethnographers for applying to Native Americans. One would think that Wallace would take the more post-modern approach that the North American indigenous cultures are anthropologically valuable in their own right, rather than spending a full chapter applying a questionable hierarchy to them in his lengthy explanation of the advanced state of the Native American peoples.
Overall, Wallace’s book does not present a new or innovative approach to Jacksonian Indian policy. The majority of what he includes as evidence for his arguments, such as the desire for land, Native American acculturation strategy or the application of 19th century and racial theory in forming policies of reform and removal are discussed in detail in works by other authors. However, Wallace does incorporate this range of ideas to provide a synthesis of anthropology and history in his analysis of Jacksonian era U.S.-Native American
Though Wallace’s work makes many contributions to the understanding of the motives behind Jacksonian Indian policy, it also has many flaws which make the narrative difficult to read. Principally, Wallace seems to be an apologist for Indian removal policy, which severely affects the tone of his writing. A review on the back cover praises Wallace’s “calmness of tone”, though this “calmness” does not seem to exist in his writing. Wallace frequently invokes inflammatory language in his descriptions, particularly in reference to white settlers. Such terms include “redneck frontiersmen” (36), “intruders” (75), and frequent use of adjectives denoting trespassing, outright theft and “covert” or deceptive practices. While some of these adjectives make be historically accurate in application, their use detracts from the objectivity of the work. Rather, the work seems more to be an emotional rant than an even-handed historical work.
Wallace also takes the approach in this writing that Native Americans were the victims of greedy and deceptive white people. The danger of portraying Native Americans in this tone of victimization is that it strips them of their agency in the whole affair. Constantly invoking the label of victimization seems to be counterproductive to Wallace’s previous arguments in the work about Native American efforts to acculturate and later to actively resist removal from their homes. In a way, it makes them powerless pawns in the hands of a manipulative player of the game of manifest destiny.
Wallace also makes use of the same 19th century ethnographical “civilization” hierarchy that he condemns in his arguments against removal and reform from the stance that Native American cultures were already advanced. These arguments asserting the advanced nature of North American Native American cultures play directly into the same hierarchy that Wallace condemns 19th century ethnographers for applying to Native Americans. One would think that Wallace would take the more post-modern approach that the North American indigenous cultures are anthropologically valuable in their own right, rather than spending a full chapter applying a questionable hierarchy to them in his lengthy explanation of the advanced state of the Native American peoples.
Overall, Wallace’s book does not present a new or innovative approach to Jacksonian Indian policy. The majority of what he includes as evidence for his arguments, such as the desire for land, Native American acculturation strategy or the application of 19th century and racial theory in forming policies of reform and removal are discussed in detail in works by other authors. However, Wallace does incorporate this range of ideas to provide a synthesis of anthropology and history in his analysis of Jacksonian era U.S.-Native American
February 25, 2010
Yet another story about how the Native Americans were screwed over by the white people. This is another topic which didn't receive too much attention when I was studying US History in school.
While the details could be construed as depressing, I feel that Americans should know how we really obtained all the land from the Indians that we did.
While the details could be construed as depressing, I feel that Americans should know how we really obtained all the land from the Indians that we did.
June 17, 2011
For a book with Andrew Jackson in the title, it's surprising how little President Jackson is referenced in this slim book. The book offers a summary of the events leading to the Indian Removal Acts of the mid-19th century and a glimpse at the Trail of Tears, but at just 144 pages, including appendices, it's not nearly as thorough as it probably could have been.
August 9, 2010
For a short book, this work gives a great history of native Americans, Jackson, and the south from 1800 - 1850.
March 9, 2011
A little dull, but definitely informative.
August 6, 2011
A quick overview of Southeastern Indians and Jackson's role in their removal west of the Mississippi. It's not the most compelling read but it did the job.
March 17, 2009
Good pace despite dry material and worth reading if interested in influential historical figures.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews