The Other Trail of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians

This isn’t “just another book” about injustice towards Native Americans, where you get massacres, forced removal, and broken promises. Historians all agree that by the time of the Wounded Knee Massacre, it was just a mopping up effort of hundreds of years of abuse. What makes this book unique is that it discusses how Anglo-US conflicts had a lot to do with it, with regards to economic and tactical gains. Instead of focusing on the peoples of the Southeast, she discusses the removal of tribes in the North and the Ohio Valley, like the Wyandot, Munsee, and Seneca.

    Dr. Mary Stockwell, a history professor from Ohio, shows how the British used the independent tribes as a tool against the USA, both for military and financial gain. There was talk in Congress of letting militias take Canadian land from Britain, a problem that Britain could not afford, given two reasons; first, Britain needed Canadian lumber for her war with Napoleon, and second, the Embargo Act cut of the US supplies of lumber. Supporting the Tecumseh rebellion was Britain’s way of keeping US settlers out. Unfortunately, just like the explosion of the USS Maine 85 years later, it gave the US a reason to go to invade someone’s territory.

    The chapter Boundaries Long Gone discusses the constant breaking of treaties. This topic will come as no surprise, because Native American tribes were never given an honest pledge by the USA. However, Dr. Stockwell dives into the various claims that the US used for breaking them. For instance, what the US drew on the maps as Indian Territory often sat between two US possessions, and if the US declared that settlers needed safe passage across that territory, they’d get it. If settlers “passing through” got into conflict with the local tribe, the US would have to step in. With farmland often poor, and the tribes lacking seed and tools, less scrupulous Natives might sell land, which the tribes considered unforgivable. Disputes between tribes were easily exploited. Since the tribes were considered independent, and not US citizens, they were not entitled to a lot of constitutional protections.

    The book doesn’t end happily, because even after the last tribes were kicked all the way to Kansas, they still got the stick. “Bleeding Kansas” was a problem for the Wyandot tribe, and the 1848 Gold Rush brought hordes of men tramping across the land. The only way out of the problem was to take the road that the Brothertown Tribe used; apply for citizenship and cease to be a tribe. Maybe the biggest source of the trouble was autonomy?