Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas Paperback – September 22, 2020

Well written account of the US genocide of the indigenous people.

Surviving Genocide presents a heartbreaking survey of European-Americans' dispiriting and genocidal sense of entitlement to land occupied by indigenous people. Whie reading it, I encountered flashes of events and personalities I somewhat remembered from history classes, but told with nuances and perspectives that fill in the Native American experience of these events. The most powerful section for me was the recounting of aspects of American revolution as a war to facilitate the disposession of Native lands, with some of our key national heroes such as Washington and Jefferson engaged in a war that secured their ability to speculate in Western land. None of this diminishes the critical ideas of the revolutionary generation, but the book shows some of the ways that there is more to story of the founding of the US than the ideals we celebrate.

Surviving Genocide is a thorough narrative of the Native American annihilation at the hands of Western Europeans. The most compelling aspect of this book is his insistence to see Genocide from the perspective of Native Americans who felt unquestionably that they were being annihilated. On the other side, through narrative history, we see the hodgepodge of European/ Indigenous interactions many of which were openly genocidal ( some were war or draw from other intentions). In the end, essentially hidden in appendix, Ostler says this was indeed a genocide

Terrific book. I particularly found the author's frequent counting of Native American populations from official and unofficial sources to show dynamic populations of Native Nations. I never learned much in school, just that the Lenape where the first inhabitants of my native state of NJ. But first they were here, and then they were gone when the Europeans arrived. I always wondered where they went. The answer: they migrated, again, and again, sometimes by choice, often by necessity. As have so many other first nations.

This is one of the best books written. It gives the reader new insight into not just the "Trail of Tears" by the Cherokee but how different indigenous nations were forced to move. The move was a tough one and the reader will feel like he is there.

Thanks.

Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas by Jeffrey Ostler is a detailed and well-documented history of the attempted (and sometimes effective) eradication of Native American tribes east of the Mississippi River before the Civil War.While the book focuses on the attempts of the US government and its citizens to force Native communities from their land, and often eradicate them as a people, this book highlights the successful attempts by many native groups to maintain their identity, power, and agency in the face of brutal dislocation. They survived genocide through a combination of strategic alliances, guerilla warfare, and sometimes the sheer luck of patterns of American settlement. Ultimately, this is not so much the story of victims as survivors.

Pivotal. Important. Forces the reader to take the concept of genocide in native history of North America seriously. But also the implication of racism and settler colonialism on health outcomes - things still linger today with social and structural health determinants. Flips the “virgin soil “ concept on its head.

I am an Australian citizen, born out on the plains of Riverine which not so long ago were the home of indigenous hunters & gatherers . Those lands were taken from their iroriginal inhabitants. I read this book to learn what had happened in America and it is the same old story of dispossession which we are so familiar with here. I hope many many US citizens will read this deeply troubling book and that the outcome will be new policies aimed at making good the injustices of the past. Unfortunately I can’t see this happening but Zi give the author of this book full marks for this extraordinary account of your country’s sad history....