Crooked Paths to Allotment: The Fight over Federal Indian Policy after the Civil War

by C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa

Overview

Standard narratives of Native American history view the nineteenth century in terms of steadily declining Indigenous sovereignty, from removal of southeastern tribes to the 1887 General Allotment Act. In Crooked Paths to Allotment, C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa complicates these narratives, focusing on political moments when viable alternatives to federal assimilation policies arose. In these moments, Native American reformers and their white allies challenged coercive practices and offered visions for policies that might have allowed Indigenous nations to adapt at their own pace and on their own terms. Examining the contests over Indian policy from Reconstruction through the Gilded Age, Genetin-Pilawa reveals the contingent state of American settler colonialism.
Genetin-Pilawa focuses on reformers and activists, including Tonawanda Seneca Ely S. Parker and Council Fire editor Thomas A. Bland, whose contributions to Indian policy debates have heretofore been underappreciated. He reveals how these men and their allies opposed such policies as forced land allotment, the elimination of traditional cultural practices, mandatory boarding school education for Indian youth, and compulsory participation in the market economy. Although the mainstream supporters of assimilation successfully repressed these efforts, the ideas and policy frameworks they espoused established a tradition of dissent against disruptive colonial governance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807837412
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	10/22/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	612,057
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa is assistant professor of history at Illinois College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1 Confining Indians 13

2 Tonawanda Seneca and the Assault on Tribal Sovereignty, 1838-1861 29

3 Peace Policy Precursors, 1861-1868 51

4 Ely Parker's Moment, 1869-1871 73

5 A Contentious Peace Policy, 1871-1875 94

6 Thomas Bland's Moment, 1878-1886 112

7 The Allotment Controversy, 1882-1889 134

Conclusion John Colliers Moment, 1928-1935 156

Notes 165

Bibliography 197

Index 219

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Through rigorous historical research, sophisticated analysis and a deft writing touch, Joseph Genetin-Pilawa offers a compelling and important counter-narrative to the standard readings of the development of late nineteenth-century U.S. Indian policy. In taking serious account of indigenous peoples' political agency, especially that of Ely S. Parker, Genetin-Pilawa offers a model for historical scholarship in this field. Crooked Paths to Allotment is an excellent work, a must-read for students and scholars of U.S.-indigenous relations and history.—Kevin Bruyneel, Babson College

A terrific piece of scholarship that triangulates biography, politics, and history to bring to life the roads that might have been taken in American Indian policy—but were not. Genetin-Pilawa has written a revelatory book that will be required reading for anyone wanting to understand the long reach of race, rights, and reform bequeathed to us in the decades following the Civil War.—Philip J. Deloria, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor of History and American Studies, University of Michigan

Genetin-Pilawa makes a strong argument bound to stimulate debate. I know of no recent work that does what this book promises to do.—Jeffrey Ostler, University of Oregon

Genetin-Pilawa convincingly reinterprets Seneca Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely Parker and nineteenth-century reformers in the context of post-Civil War state formation, offering further evidence that U.S. history sans American Indians is a failed project.—Jacki Thompson Rand, University of Iowa

Editorial Reviews

Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty.—Choice

Well-written and well researched, this book . . . is a welcomed addition to the scholarship.—Journal of American History

Crooked Paths to Allotment deepens our understanding of late nineteenth-century Indian policy…[and] makes thought-provoking observations about how some reformist positions in Indian policy fitted within—and to some extent anticipated—the broader development of a more active federal government role in promoting social welfare.—American Historical Review

A well-written, eight-chapter work that portrays 'Crooked Paths to Allotment' from a general portrayal of federal policies.—Ethnohistory

[A] useful addition to the history of Indian-white relations in the United States.—North Carolina Historical Review

Crooked Paths to Allotment deepens our understanding of late nineteenth-century Indian policy. . . . The author makes thought-provoking observations about how some reformist positions on Indian policy fitted within. . . the broader development of a more active federal government role in promoting social welfare.—American Historical Review

Tells a significant story.—Tribal College Journal

Exhibiting an impressive depth of primary research and utilizing a number of sparsely consulted archival collections, Crooked Paths to Allotment is a useful contribution to the historiography of American Indian policy.—Kansas History

Genetin-Pilawa shows how federal Indian relations have reflected and, at times, driven U.S. policy creation in general, and state development and bureaucratization in particular.—Great Plains Quarterly

[This book] succeeds admirably in questioning the inevitability of coerced assimilation after the Civil War. It serves as an important reminder that there were viable, potentially less destructive paths not taken in the quest to resolve the 'Indian problem.'—Utah Historical Quarterly

Effectively demonstrates that the federal government's colonial agenda of the late nineteenth century was not monolithic, for some federal officials embraced notions of Indian sovereignty that would not appear in Indian policy until the 1970s.—H-SHGAPE

A small book that makes a huge impact.—South Dakota History

A much-needed addition to the current historiography concerning allotment in Native American history." —Journal of American Ethnic History

Students interested in the histories of Native nations and confederated tribes in Oregon and the Northwest will appreciate Genetin-Pilawa's careful description of the political rivalries that raged before the federal government chose to pursue those devastating policies.—Oregon Historical Quarterly

Genetin-Pilawa crosses important topical and regional boundaries that have long separated studies of western expansion from southern and eastern narratives of Reconstruction following the Civil War.—American Indian Quarterly

Genetn-Pilawa's contribution is to bring the stories of Parker and Bland together for examination.—The Historian

From the Publisher