Indian removal book explains opening of Ohio

Runs like Cougar

  Most people are familiar with the trail of tears and displacement of Native Americans from the Southeast of the United States. The removal of the five civilized tribes of the Southeast is well-known in American history books but as author Mary Stockwell points out little is known of the same displacement that occurred in the Ohio Valley. Her book "The Other Trail Of Tears" studies how these Indians were also moved from their ancestral homes into Kansas and Oklahoma through the Indian removal act of 1830. She writes about the tribulations of the Seneca, Shawnee, Delaware, Ottawa, and Huron who for long time battled frontiersmen both British and American to retain their hunting grounds and lands from relentless pressure tfor them to give parts of it up. This book starts right after the war of 1812 and pretty much covers the treaty of Ghent and how the failure of the British in organizing an Indian state as part of the treaty pretty much doomed a future for these tribes in Ohio country.  Mary pretty much shows how far liquor had brought down these once proud warriors following the war of 1812 and reduced them to beggary and thievery earning them disdain from frontier population that totally wanted them displaced and more lands open up for profit and gain. The development and migration into Ohio from the end of 1812 to 1826 overwhelmed the last holdout tribes that hadn't yet moved as settlers cut down the forests and erected their barns all over Ohio as tribes vied with one another to get the best deal they can get from selling parts of their reserves. Mary does reveal there were many people backing the Indians and tried to get the ones who were farming and becoming Christian to stay but the division between those tribe members who wanted to adapt and those to preserve tjeir old ways doomed any hope of those who wished to remain. many of these tribes thought that moving west was the right decision as they could live their hunting lifestyle undisturbed but this only was a temporary fix and they would conflict with the Western tribes who were no more enthusiast for eastern Indians coming as they were with the westward expanding pale faces. the roles and policies of individual presidents is examined throughout the book as few presidents were willing to compromise anything short of entire Indian removal from Ohio. many elected officials had come from an era  some sort of frontier  terrors and they reminded so many of Indian depredations years past. of course they pretty much ignored some of the White land terror on natives as it was more convenient to give a one-sided debate of this topic.

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