Rex Dyer

9/21/2021

Hist-2450

Professor Nicolas Rosenthal

Genocide: Historical Review and the American Indian

In the book “Unworthy Republic” the Author Claudio Saunt attacks many of the

preconceptions and falsehoods that come with the spreading of “Settler Colonial History”

specifically with a focus on the genocide of the American Indian. Saunt targets the

preconceptions of inevitability of destruction, the inability of natives to coexist with

“civilization”, and the innocence of actions that can only be described as genocide 1. These

tenets that make up the idea of “Settler Colonial history” are heavily rebuked by Saunt as they

show the hypocrisy and lies that allowed for horrific acts to occur through revisiting past policy

and showcasing first person accounts of the American Indians who were displaced.

Saunt addresses an essential falsehood of American Indian history, that being the

inevitability of their “removal” by the ongoing encroachment of western civilization as a part of

America’s natural growth. The author puts focus on the acceptance of this dispossession of

natives as a function of America’s economic growth and a major function of the economy both

at home and abroad. Saunt shines a light on the insidious business practice of the northern

bankers who were “the North’s equivalent to southern plantation owners” and the unfair

1
Saunt, Claudio. Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. New
York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2021.
purchases of native land at the hands of a large amount of land equities. This drive of economic

progress that lined the pockets of both American and European businessmen was not a

supported endeavor as there were many movements of activism against the federal

governments assault on native lands, these were ignored by investment companies who sought

to profit over the new arable lands. The connection between the nations growth and American

Indian suffering is one greatly focused on by Saunt as something not to be disregarded.

One of the major issues Saunt takes with the major narratives of American Indian

history is the non-transgressive terminology many take when addressing the atrocities against

the native peoples, specifically the usage of lukewarm terms such as removal or expulsion

which in any other situation would be quite plainly called genocide. The refusal from both a

modern historical retrospective and in addressing policy in the time it was introduced remains

stubbornly as a refusal to allow historical revisionism to lessen the horrific actions committed

against the natives, as Massachusetts representative said, “Removal is a soft word”. Saunt

spoke heavily on the subject, accosting the use of false terminology used by both the federal

government and settlers to lessen the crimes of forcing natives from their homes, using terms

such as “Deportation” and “Removal” to lessen the impact of the actions that would follow, and

the official policy that would force native groups to fight over lands that were mostly inarable to

make greater room for those American citizenry who wished to engage in wealthy practices

such as cotton harvesting. The “Indian Removal act” is one of the most prominent sources of

this hypocritical terminology in congruence of violent acts, being used as a justification for

armed mobs and militias to target native settlements “With cowhide whips and hickory clubs”.
This lukewarm terminology often made the annihilation and driving of Americans off their lands

much more palatable to the American public both past and present.

One of the greatest justifications of native genocide is the focus on their differences

from American society, the idea that they were savage foreigners and that they could not

survive near American civilization, a falsehood propagated through misunderstanding of native

customs and ambivalence to any evidence to the contrary. A common excuse for assaulting the

natives was on the claims of savagery and animosity to American society, something many

natives tried to avoid being targeted for by adapting to American culture and picking up a

sedentary farming lifestyle, something that was often ignored as state and federal troops were

deployed to drive them off their lands if they resisted, as can be seen with the Cherokee tribe

within the state of Georgia. This persecution was also engaged through a misunderstanding of

native customs and culture, as can be seen with the attempts of the United States to take into

census native populations without accounting for both the views on race and the organization

of the native family units, creating many difficulties with the parceling of land, further

disadvantage those natives forced westward. This combination of dismissiveness to the

American Indians rights and treaties combined with a view of Indian culture as foreign and

savage othered native populations in the eyes of American settlers allowing them to drive

forward into their lands.

Gaunt has showcased his argument against both the past justification of atrocities

against the American Indians and the modern historical revisionism by attacking false narratives

and providing both firsthand accounts and legal documentation of these horrific actions against

native populations. These accounts show the basis of the economic and national drive by both
private citizens and the federal government to take native land and push natives into

reservations on a racial and profit basis, all while pointing out the hypocrisy and demonstrable

lies used to acquire this growth and how treating these actions as anything less than genocide is

foolhardy at best and dishonest at worst. This novel best covers not only the actions of the past,

but also how we can look to both the past and present to see how people will downplay horrific

events to avoid responsibility and acknowledgement.