How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier Contributor(s): Banner, Stuart (Author) |
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ISBN: 067402396X ISBN-13: 9780674023963 Publisher: Belknap Press OUR PRICE: $30.40 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 2007 Annotation: Between the early seventeenth century and the early twentieth, nearly all the land in the United States was transferred from American Indians to whites. This dramatic transformation has been understood in two very different ways--as a series of consensual transactions, but also as a process of violent conquest. Both views cannot be correct. How did Indians actually lose their land? Stuart Banner provides the first comprehensive answer. He argues that neither simple coercion nor simple consent reflects the complicated legal history of land transfers. Instead, time, place, and the balance of power between Indians and settlers decided the outcome of land struggles. As whites' power grew, they were able to establish the legal institutions and the rules by which land transactions would be made and enforced. This story of America's colonization remains a story of power, but a more complex kind of power than historians have acknowledged. It is a story in which military force was less important than the power to shape the legal framework within which land would be owned. As a result, white Americans--from eastern cities to the western frontiers--could believe they were buying land from the Indians the same way they bought land from one another. "How the Indians Lost Their Land" dramatically reveals how subtle changes in the law can determine the fate of a nation, and our understanding of the past. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Native American - History | United States - General - Law | Legal History |
Dewey: 333.2 |
Physical Information: 0.91" H x 6.28" W x 9.12" (1.07 lbs) 352 pages |
Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - Native American |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Between the early seventeenth century and the early twentieth, nearly all the land in the United States was transferred from AmericanIndians to whites. This dramatic transformation has been understood in two very different ways--as a series of consensual transactions, but also as a process of violent conquest. Both views cannot be correct. How did Indians actually lose their land? Stuart Banner provides the first comprehensive answer. He argues that neither simple coercion nor simple consent reflects the complicated legal history of land transfers. Instead, time, place, and the balance of power between Indians and settlers decided the outcome of land struggles. As whites' power grew, they were able to establish the legal institutions and the rules by which land transactions would be made and enforced. This story of America's colonization remains a story of power, but a more complex kind of power than historians have acknowledged. It is a story in which military force was less important than the power to shape the legal framework within which land would be owned. As a result, white Americans--from eastern cities to the western frontiers--could believe they were buying land from the Indians the same way they bought land from one another. How the Indians Lost Their Land dramatically reveals how subtle changes in the law can determine the fate of a nation, and our understanding of the past. |
Contributor Bio(s): Banner, Stuart: - Stuart Banner is Norman Abrams Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. |