I recently finished Jeffrey Ostler’s new book, Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas, and it’s excellent, in my opinion. Just like the research I did for the “women in the West” blog, reading Surviving Genocide drove home just how essential it is to find the time to read around the topic. In the first instance, this is in the interests of sewing together an accurate, historical picture, but it is also important to ensure that within that scheme of work the history is inclusive and representative. Ostler presents the Indigenous as powerful and resilient in the face of constant and deliberate persecution; the racial dynamic, particularly surrounding slavery, is complex and evidence-based, and he incorporates male and female actors seamlessly and without hierarchy. I will be aiming to model the language and approach of this book in the delivery of my lessons.
Surviving Genocide opens in the 1500s but the bulk of it focuses on the Eastern tribes, c.1750-1860, as the first of two volumes analysing whether or not US actions against the Native Americans could be defined as genocide. It follows the spread of US expansionism towards the Mississippi and the impact that it had on the demographics of Native tribes. Defining these actions as genocide is not common in scholarship of the West and even among those who broach the topic, some would argue that a label of Ethnic Cleansing is more appropriate (Gary Clayton Anderson). Ostler’s position is that to classify the atrocity as genocidal is simplistic but, throughout, he uses documents, statistics, and oral histories to evidence consistent genocidal potential in the motivation for removal and a clear understanding within the US government of its genocidal consequences. What I see as one of the most pertinent reasons for teachers of the Plains to read this is that for hundreds of years, even before the point of removal was reached, Native action and reactions were shaped by a belief in the sustained genocidal intentions of the US.
Ostler argues that the level of violence in the 1700s at the hands of American militias, sometimes directed by the Government, can help us understand the tension and decision-making of the 1800s. This was also a stand-out moment of Kerry Apps’ session at the “Understanding Conflict on the Plains” virtual conference hosted by SHP in June, and one of the reasons that I chose this book rather than one which strengthened my knowledge of the core content, such as domestic policies of individual presidents. It is only the (400 page) tip of the iceberg for a course on the Plains but it’s 400 pages of essential hinterland knowledge. A stronger sense of the tribes’ immediate history across the continent will help students contextualise the decision-making process, view the Indian negotiators as autonomous, and allow students to form more accurate, nuanced links between narrative events.
This post is an informal review of the book, structured by the key takeaways I will be using to inform and adapt my teaching of the American West. They can be summarised as:
- Modernise my presentation of indigenous tribes
- Help students understand that negotiation for the Plains is the next chapter in a long fight
- Use the language and legacy of genocide and genocidal intent to frame students’ understanding of decision-making
1: Beliefs and survival of the tribes themselves
As I said above, Ostler paints a picture of communities that are resilient, strategic, and flexible in the face of persecution when no-one could, or should, have expected them to be. I didn’t appreciate the extent to which the Eastern tribes had fought and adapted for such a long time before removal from the East c.1830. They consciously and cleverly crafted survival strategies, such as forming alliances with other tribes, cultivating their relationship with the British in Canada, maintaining their population by adopting outsiders or marriage with traders, and, crucially, adapting their cultural traditions and economic models (Chapter 4). The Oneidas, for example, sold fish, the Senecas logged pines, the Creek took on spinning and cotton trading, and the Cherokee even owned 1, 600 wheels and 467 looms by 1809. Their mixed subsistence economies were key to their survival and whilst they should never have been forced into that position, I think it’s right to acknowledge the way that their communities had adapted by 1830. Every time they were pushed to the brink, they came back. The Cherokee even went so far as to have a codified constitution, paternalism, an education system based on Euro-American values and curriculums, and a static capital city (Chapter 6).
I realise that there is a significant difference in the extent of exposure that Eastern tribes had to white culture, compared to the Plains tribes in 1830, but I still think you could describe Ostler’s tribes as modern and progressive (with a few exceptions, such as the adoption of Victorian gender roles), whereas the textbook seems quite stereotypical and trapped in time. There is little to no discussion of trading relationships with white communities (and the women engineering them) or the extent to which settlers were already penetrating the Removal Zone and the Plains in 1830. It seems implausible to me that at least some of this culture, resistance, or shared oral history had not permeated the Plains. I would argue that even if the specifics changed, this was a spirit that was intrinsic in the Indigenous people and not created by proximity to the US. Students need an accurate understanding of these people if they are going to analyse them.
It reminds me of the misguided narrative that the Jews of 1940s Europe “went to their deaths willingly” – we must contextualise Indigenous cooperation at events such as the signing of destructive treaties and show that they took calculated decisions, rather than meekly submitting, blind, to America’s glaringly obvious precedent for reneging. Whilst I’m sure that the presentation of tribes is taking centre stage in the exam board revisions going on at the moment, it’s still worth saying that the specification is in need of a rethink.
2: Already West of the Mississippi (mostly Chapter 10)
One thing that my teaching could benefit from is to make it clearer that some white migrants had already settled West of the Mississippi before 1830. More people crossed the Missouri river between 1815-1819 than any other point in history and the non-Indian population of the West was up from 20, 000 in 1812 to 60, 000 in 1820. Even the Indigenous relocating from the East (4000-6000 Cherokee living and fighting on Osage land by the 1820s) would have had a significant impact on certain Plains tribes, if simply because the Osage would therefore have an understanding of migration, its causes, and consequences (the Osage lost 30-40% of their population by 1860, which Ostler links to western migration of the Eastern indigenous).
Further, the bison herds were already diminishing because of pressure on the grasslands for the Comanche’s horses and Creek livestock coming over in the removals. Suspicion and tension on the Plains were increasing, whether that was between tribes or settlers and tribes, and the smaller tribes who remained dependent on hunting after relocation came into conflict with Plains Indians. This might not have amounted to significant population losses in the short-term, but it does mean that they would have been aware of migrating tribes. The Osage even relocated to Kansas because of Cherokee migrants to Oklahoma. Plains Indians were at least engaging in trade, Ostler points out, and beginning to experience land cession and military presence. This is not something that the textbooks generally acknowledge.
Additionally, some of the tribes “asked” to cede their land to the US from the 1830s onwards had already been forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the East. For example, when Kansas was opened to white settlement in 1854 it was filled with Plains and migrant tribes. More than 10, 000 migrants such as the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and Delaware had faced removal already; they had been forced off their land and given space in Kansas because it was deemed to be unsuitable for white settlement. Many of these had experienced starvation, disease, and murder on the removal journeys. This would impact their predictions of success or futility in the negotiation of treaties, and as a result their compliance or resistance. Their consciousness of American intentions within their own history or reality is therefore too important to neglect. If students are to sew a narrative together, to understand what moves the story on, then they need to grasp what is motivating decision-making on both sides.
3: Links with the slave trade
In Chapter 9 Ostler explains the differences between genocidal atrocity or levels of intent in the North and South. Whilst the slave trade and the ramifications of slave ownership in any culture, moral or practical, are not the focus of this book, it does highlight a few important points concerning the links between the plantations and removal. Cotton had a boom in production from £85 million in 1810 to £331 million in 1830. Removal meant that plantation owners could access more cotton fields, expand their markets, sell more slaves, and accelerate the South’s economic and political power. They also wanted to stop escaped slaves being assisted or given refuge with the tribes. Pressure was growing from Southern slave owners who wanted the land for plantations and the appointment of Andrew Jackson, a staunch Virginian, meant that the Removal Policy was formalised in 1830. By 1850, the South was producing £1 billion of cotton on their new land, which was three times the amount generated before removal.
Students may be able to better understand the relentless and escalating policy of land seizure if they could link it to American economic priorities. Alternatively, it might be helpful to make the link at KS3, to support schematic knowledge of the American West later.
4: The complexity of the Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears and the 1830 Removals Act is such a poignant moment and essential precedent for the events of the 1800s. It’s frustrating to me that justice is not done to the causes, events, or consequences of this moment in our course. There is no time to analyse the lengths to which the Cherokee went to overturn removal through the Supreme Court and it would be a fantastic opportunity to discuss the political power of women in the activism of people like Nancy Ward, Catherine Beecher, and Margaret Anna Scott. Personally, I would happily sacrifice enough elements of farming, cattle, and lawlessness that would let us do the clash between Indians and settlers in more depth. However, Ostler describes the removals and the trails as a pivot point in the tension, so begrudgingly I understand why the exam board sidelines it in favour of later content. However, I still think it’s essential that students have a more nuanced understanding of the Removals Act and the events that led to it, so that they can more fully understand its short-term and long-term consequences.
Between 1830-1850, 88, 000 Natives were evicted westward to reservations in places such as Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. 12, 000 -17, 000 died, which was approximately 14-19% (it’s worth saying that Ostler puts a heavy emphasis on the percentages of population decline because the figures, when compared to other instances of genocidal atrocity, do seem small and not overtly genocidal). It was presented as a war to prevent genocide, in light of the conflict that had “regrettably” come before. However, Ostler goes to great lengths to show that the Native Communities had not been driven into the ground by this conflict and, in some areas, populations were stable or growing: “the mythology of the vanishing Indian” (Chapter 6: non-vanishing Indians on the eve of removal). The population of the Cherokee had grown from 8500 in 1775 to 18-20, 000 in the 1820s, including the 4-6000 that had migrated West already. The population of Creeks had grown from 14, 000 to 20, 000 in the same time, even with the Creek War. The total number of Indians living East of the Mississippi before the American Revolution was 88, 000 – 95, 000 and by the 1820s this was 112, 000 – 121, 000. Therefore, despite the best efforts of some American Presidents, if the Indians remained in the East then genocide was not inevitable and removal did not qualify as just. Conflict on the Plains began with this duplicity.
5: The history of genocidal intent
I will be writing a different blog on the topic of genocide in the West because I could talk for days on this subject so I will try to be brief here. However, Surviving Genocide has a fantastic appendix about debates on the classification of genocide and ultimately Ostler concludes, as I said above, that whilst classifying these events as genocide is too simplistic (because it was not present at all times) there was (at least) ‘genocidal potential’ in the steps taken by the government to ensure successful expansion and the consequences that these actions had on the demographics of so many tribes. Ostler shows that consistent and sustained threats of violence against Indigenous communities were present over hundreds of years, through different political and military environments, and throughout all levels of interaction: federal, state, and individual. The fact that the classification of genocide is even debatable is because of the determination of tribes to survive, not any kind of benevolence from the Americans.
As with the nature of atrocities committed in the interests of territorial expansion and settlement, this is a genocide that happens over time, with ebbs and flows, but a consistent current of potential. Policies of westernisation, assimilation, and removal were temporary and changing between administration or threat that the US faced, but what did not change, for hundreds of years, was the danger of bodily harm if the government’s set schemes were not followed (and, in the case of assimilation, as Ostler evidences with the hybrid practises of the Cherokee before removal, even when they were). This matches the language of the 1948 UN Convention on the crime of genocide in its “intent to destroy” and Raphael Lemkin’s “destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed, and the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor”; the traditional way of life for Native Americans was first made hybrid by the arrival and imposition of white culture in trading relationships, and then destroyed by removal or settlement.
Chapter 1 begins with the tribes caught in the crosshairs of imperial conflict, at which point Ostler evidences genocidal intent shaped by differing models of colonialism. Chapter Two, on the Wars of Revolution and Independence, shows in more detail the similarities and differences between British and American settler colonialism and, whilst this is not to let the British off the hook, Ostler argues that the Americans were more aggressive in the nature and extent of their actions against Indians specifically. The intent to kill all Indians came mostly “from below”, from local militias and the individual soldiers who believed in their own racial superiority and the right to dominate others. To evidence this, Ostler includes a number of instances from both those who were subject to genocidal policies and those in charge of enforcing them, including the smallpox blankets, but particularly the Paxton Boys massacre of Susequehannoc in Conestoga Town, 1763, and the Gnadenhutten massacre of 96 Christian Delaware people by a US militia in 1782. However, the consistency of extirpation across time was state-sponsored. Ostler cites the toll of American killing in the Revolutionary War (the US killed between 2-4 times the number of Indigenous people than the British in any conflict previously), and the Ottawa war Chief, Eugushawa, foretelling “the systematic destruction of most Indian people” in 1791. In 1854 John Quinney, a Mahican, addressed a crowd in New York and said that “the extinction … of [his] tribe was inevitable.” Both these men saw consistent intent in the actions of successive American governments. (Conclusion).
When the Cherokees were facing removal, General Winfeld Scott (1838) said: “the President has sent me with a … powerful army … to resist would … result in the destruction of the Cherokee”. I don’t think it’s a strong enough argument to say that this was not genocidal simply because the Cherokee chose not to be destroyed and eventually complied with removal; those that did not move faced massacre, such as Black Hawk’s band at Bad Axe, 1832, and the Creeks murdered by the Alabama militia in 1837. The number of different removals undertaken, each with genocidal consequences, meant that the government knew exactly how damaging their policy was and did nothing to stop identical atrocities in the future, whether that was by affording the Natives the necessary support or stopping the journeys altogether (Chapter 11). This, I would argue, is deliberately neglectful. The conditions of the removal journeys were “calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or part” (1948 UN Convention). In one convoy of Creeks in 1939, 1000 died on the way and 3500 died in the conditions upon arrival in a place with no infrastructure and purposefully inadequate land.
A truly humane America would have protected Native Communities in place, but under the guise of saving them, the United States now threatened their destruction” p213
OStler, p213
Consequently, it’s important to use the term in lessons, if not to say that it was genocide but to introduce the debate. The significance of this definition for the legacy of American expansionism is another conversation entirely, but from the perspective of providing accurate analysis, it helps students develop their discussions of the forces driving narrative change. The target of these genocidal intentions were the Eastern tribes, but the awareness of this intent would have been taken West by the relocated tribes, and it was certainly something that the Plains Indians would become horrendously familiar with. Genocidal intent shapes the actions of the US Government or military, and belief in their genocidal intentions impacts any Indigenous reactions and subsequent action. Therefore, the impact of pre-1800s genocidal atrocity and the legacy of removal with genocidal intent are undercurrent in all aspects of the 19th Century.
I hope that is helpful!
@RidleyHistory
P.S. I thought this was a really useful fact for the westward migration of white settlers: 10, 000 died on the Oregon and California overland trails between 1840-1860 but only 4% of those were killed by Indians.
References:
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of genocide: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
Gary Clayton Anderson, Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America, (2014)
Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, 1944
Jeffrey Ostler, Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas, (2019)
Tea & Learning 