Dow Jones’s Reviews > The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History > Status Update

Latin American independence gave blacks & Indians equality & abolished slavery. Andrew Jackson & Calhoun started Seminole War for Florida & Caribbean territory. Monroe Doctrine was garbage & John Marshall’s “Doctrine of Discovery” was ridiculous. Federal gov power of Indian land sales etc is growing stronger & no foreign nation can intervene. Next comes Civil War period.

Now the PNW story gets told. California begins to take shape as Spanish begin colonizing. The Russian-Aleut colonizers were brutal rapists who spread VD rampantly from Alaska - south. PNW Natives are praised for fishing & whaling techniques. Maquinna is one Native leader whose redistributed wealth made him powerful & respected. Smallpox spreads from central Mexico up to Manitoba. Violence & disease annihilation.

Georgia battles the Cherokee to push them out and when the Indians try to take the state to court, Marshall tosses it because they’re not a foreign nation w/ legal right to sue the state, but a year later, progress is made. Andrew Clayton was Georgia’s rep in Congress, had Corn Tassel hanged to peacock “power”, and he echoes others with concerns of the South’s freedom & states rights leading into Lincoln.

Damn, even as Natives ceded their lands further and further just to have their sovereignty in the writings of treaties, Georgia and many southern states just ignored federal powers and said anything on state land was the state’s. French Revolution ceded Louisiana Purchase lands as well but citizenship of inhabitants was rocky. Andrew Jackson is coming up soon and then more trouble begins.

As Jefferson is recasted by the Haitian Revolution, he and James Monroe agree that they should find a way to deport all the black slaves somewhere else before an uprising could happen. Sierra Leone was an option considered.

1790’s Naturalization Act was the first time whiteness was put in legal writing, thus perpetuating legal racism in the US. 2 years later, the Militia Act followed its use as well. Very wild chapter 7. Tons of interesting info. Jefferson going to Paris in 1785 & love affair w/ 14yr old slave Sally Hemmings. His absence led to modern romanticization of American beginnings; he wasn’t even here.

The Articles of Confederation fail in enforcing any laws, so the Constitutional Convention establishes our 3-tiered system and it becomes obvious colonialism is about to reach new heights as Indians are barely mentioned & land acquisition & the standing army are more intimidating than state militias. Now onto Part II - Struggles for Sovereignty.

Washington’s fed up with western expansion squatters and how the land scramble is devaluing property and risking Native relations. He says Indians have sovereignty over their lands and can act as they see fit, as well as expanding his beliefs on republicanism and a stronger government to deal with land settlements and tribal relations. Subsequent presidents spent more time in Europe than America, so only he knows.

As GW retires from military service, states struggle with control and start printing their own currencies which further inflation and contribute nothing to national debt. The founding documents are drafted & implemented w/ little support. Natives keep getting pushed west or north & side w/ British. So many unpaid soldiers (2yrs+) and government distrust is high.

The Paxton Boys (later Black Boys) were such cowards, as was Lieutenant Charles Grant for turning over criminals because he didn’t know if he had any power to keep them. Colonists kept pushing Indians west or killing them & blocking British trading missions. Now it jumps from 1765, glosses over a decade of most important independence, and seems to resume in 1783. Too many details missing between chapters.