The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians (Hill and Wang Critical Issues)

well done

This is the best single book I have read about what the administration of Andrew Jackson did to the five civilized tribes of Southeastern Indians during the time of his two administrations. Jackson himself perpetuated the lie that they were nomadic peoples like western Indians beyond the Mississippi river. The Cherokee were the people who made Jackson's circle the angriest. They invented their own alphabet and published their own newspaper. Some Cherokee just like Jackson owned slaves. The Seminoles, on the other hand, welcomed runaway slaves and married some of them. Wallace tells this despicable tale well and has assembled mortality data about what the Indian Removal Act of 1830 did to each tribe. There are excellent maps that display how removal was arranged for each tribe as well. I highly recommend this book. It is clearly written and packs a lot of information into a relatively brief book.

good book

It is a book my son needed at college. He has an A in the class so I am calling the book a slam dunk.

In this brief work, The Long, Bitter Trail by Anthony F.C. Wallace provides a new perspective to American Indian policy in the 19th century. Wallace is a well-known historian and a professor of history and anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. In this piece, Wallace argues against the claims of many historians who believe the Indians were either a threat or needed to be civilized. The focus of this book, as the author states, is "looking at both the land-hungry white Americans and their Native American victims" (13). Moreover, Wallace argues that white self-interest determined the fate of the Indians. The Long, Bitter Trail is a brief work that is well organized, but fails to be objective.Wallace divides his book into an introduction, four chapters, and an "aftermath (epilogue)." This book effectively organizes its chapters in chronological order with each chapter setting up the next. In his introduction, Wallace provides background about Andrew Jackson's life and politics with Indians. He argues that Andrew Jackson like many other politicians had his own financial interest in some of the land acquired from Native Americans.The first chapter examines a brief history of the Indians and their contacts with Europeans and American settlers. This chapter is effectively titled, "The Changing Worlds of the Native Americans." The world of the Native Americans in the southeast was changed for the worse as settlers spread diseases such as small pox. The northeast Indian relations started out peacefully because Native Indians and European settlers were interested in exchanging goods with one another, but interests changed when a series of wars between France and Britain occurred in colonial America, which placed the Indians in the middle of the conflict. These wars were fought over land and became the new interest of Europeans living in colonial America. The United States continued these wars over land with the Native Americans and eventually defeated the northeastern Indians. He concludes in this chapter that after the United States defeated the northeastern Indians, the United States turned its interest to the "more civilized" southeastern Indians, which leads to the next chapter that dealt with these tribes (28-29).The second chapter deals with Federal policy and the Indians. This chapter focuses on the reasons and financial interests of politicians who would determine the fate of the southeastern Indians. Wallace claims, "And now, when the policy of civilizing and assimilating the Indians was accused of being a failure, if not a mistake to begin with, the idea of colonizing the Indians west of the Mississippi gained favor" (39). Wallace believes that moving the Indians west of the Mississippi allowed the United States to acquire more territory by American settlers moving westward.The third and fourth chapter focuses on how the Indians were relocated off their land. The third chapter is properly titled "Removal Act" as the author examines the different policies that dealt with removing the Indians from their lands. In particular, this chapter focuses on Andrew Jackson's policies to relocate the Cherokees, Creaks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws west of the Mississippi. The author also discusses how Politicians and missionaries had different interests of the Indians. The eastern politicians wanted the Indians land while the missionaries wanted to "Christianized" the Indians. Chapter four focuses on the Trail of Tears, which relocated the Cherokees west of the Mississippi. The author discussed how the Native Americans were forced off their lands by the Federal government through the use of the military.The aftermath chapter focuses on the legacy of the Indian Removal Act and its consequences. The author believes this had a dramatic effect on the lives of Native Americans. Indians continually became victims of the Federal government's policy. The Federal government's allotment system had negative effects on the Native Americans, which included poverty, reduced health, and poor education (119). The author concludes, "Two hundred years of national indecision about how the United States should deal with its Native Americans have not come to an end" (120). The Long, Bitter Trail does an effective job organizing its content through chronological order, which makes this book easily read and understood.Wallace is not objective in this book because he is portrays whites as always being the aggressors with the Indians always being the victims. There are other books that are more objective because they demonstrate that atrocities were committed on both sides. For example, The First Frontier by R.V. Coleman argues whites and Indians constantly broke treaties with one another. Wallace, on the other hand, did not deny any wrong doing of the Indians.Wallace should have expanded on some of his controversial arguments. For instance, Wallace argues, "It was not the `savagery' of the Indians that land-hungry whites dreaded; it was their `civilization'" (11). He fails to follow up on this claim and instead he writes about the consequences of the trans-Mississippi removal of the Southern Indians after this bold statement. The author also wrote that Jackson believed that "The Indians were savage, cruel, bloodthirsty, cannibalistic butchers of innocent white women and children, and should be driven into submission or extinction" (54). Yet Wallace neglects to explain this bold statement or state the source. After this, Wallace went on to write, "But Jackson's relationships with individual Indians could be warm, even intimate" (54). Wallace did not attempt to explain why this differed from Jackson's general belief of Indians. Wallace's failure to explain his controversial statements weakens his argument.Other historians such as Robert Remini would disagree with how Wallace portrayed Jackson. Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars by Robert Remini portrays Andrew Jackson as being friendlier and cooperative to Indians who wanted to preserve their culture. Remini also argues that Jackson enforced treaties between whites and the Indians with equal treatment to those who broke them. Wallace should have addressed such viewpoints from Robert Remini along with the other historians who he has criticized. Wallace's controversial statements express a lack of objectivity and leave these ideas open for debate because he failed to be convincing.Overall, The Long, Bitter Trail is well organized and well written, but this book has several weaknesses. Wallace's arguments are not convincing enough because he does not provide enough evidence nor does he explain all of his statements. Although the author tries to cover an abundance of material in a short amount of pages, the author clearly states his arguments. This book would provide a good introduction and counter points for high school students who are being introduced to this topic, but for an expert, this book provides a lack of new information except criticism on other works on Indian policy.

It helped me with my project but I wish it helped me a bit more and gave more detailed chapters.

Simply the best work available on Indian Removal, in my opinion. It is highly regarded among academic historians. Wallace did a tremendous job of writing clearly and making the plight of the Indians understandable to anyone. It is short, it is lucid, it is interesting reading. Plus, it is balanced. This is not a work that treats Indians as childlike, passive victims, but it does convey the injustice and unnecessary hardships to which they were subjected. It also does not portray the government and non-Indian Americans simply as aggressors. It's an important work for understanding what happened to the tribes. It won't take a lot of your time, so do yourself a favor and read it.

An Indian activist or just an amature historian, everyone should read this book. Though short, it gives an excellent narrative of the removal of Indians and their trama from the East by the American government. This book is amazingly well written and is for both students (like myself who read it in a class) or for casual readers. Please concider this book to find out more about the emerging stories of what really happened to Native Americans.

Great