Tribalism and the American Indian

Abstract

Brian W. Dippie. The Vanishing American : White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy. Middletown. Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. 1982. 432 + xvii pp. Charles Hudson, ed. Black Drink: A Native American Tea. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979.175 + vii pp. Daniel F. Littlefield. Jr. Africans and Creeks: From the Colonial Period to the Civil War. Westport. Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. 286 + xiii pp. William K. Powers. Oglala Religion. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1977. 233 + xxi pp. Graham D. Taylor. The New Deal and American Indian Tribalism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980. 203 + xii pp. Walter D. Williams, ed. Southeastern Indians: Since Removal. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979. 253 + xvi pp. For the past two hundred years, American society has recognized the existence of Indian tribes as a political fact of life, while ignoring for the most part the cultural aspects of Indian tribalism. At the center of this paradox and outweighing all other considerations, has been the issue of Indian lands. From earliest settlements, Indians were forced off desired land, either physically or by attrition, but the effect was the same. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, public attitudes were fixed and few believed that Indian tribes had any right or title to the land. President Andrew Jackson in his Annual Message to Congress reflected popular opinion when he asked rhetorically: "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns and prosperous farms...and filled with the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion?'1 (1830).