Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory

“On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise,” wrote Justice Gorsuch in McGirt v. Oklahoma.  Historian Claudio Saunt explores the origins of the promise in the 1830s, when the United States deported 80,000 indigenous Americans from their eastern homelands.  The fiercely contested policy marked a turning point for both the United States and Native peoples, and the unprecedented operation later became a model for colonial empires around the world. 

Claudio Saunt, the Russell Professor of American History at the University of Georgia, is the author most recently of Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory, a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award, one of the Washington Post’s ten best books of 2020, and a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of the year.  He is also the author of three other award-winning books and numerous articles on Native American history.

Panelist Kathleen DuVall mentioned the following sources in her remarks for those who want to explore this topic further:

• John Bowes, Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal
• Malinda Maynor Lowery, Lumbees: An American Struggle
• Jean M. O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England
• Constance Owl, “Tsalagi Tsulehisanvhi: Uncovering Cherokee Language Articles from the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper, 1828–1834,” MA thesis, Western Carolina University
• Julie L. Reed, Serving the Nation: Cherokee Sovereignty and Social Welfare, 1800-1907
• Christina Snyder, Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson
• Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents
• Articles and forthcoming books by Michael Witgen, Alaina Roberts, Nakia Parker, Brooke Bauer, Elizabeth Ellis, Emilie Connolly

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University and the National History Center) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is organized jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year.  This session is co-sponsored by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture and co-chaired by Karin Wulf (College of William and Mary), the director of the Omohundro Institute.  The seminar thanks its anonymous individual donors and institutional partners (the George Washington University History Department and the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest) for their continued support.