The Indians in American Society: From the Revolutionary War to the Present(29 Quantum Books)

American Indian affairs are much in the public mind today - hotly contested debates over such issues as Indian fishing rights, land claims, and reservation gambling hold our attention. While the unique legal status of American Indians rests on the historical treaty relationship between Indian tribes and the federal government, until now there has been no comprehensive history of these treaties and their role in American life. Francis Paul Prucha, a leading authority on the history of American Indian affairs, argues that the treaties were a political anomaly from the very beginning.The term "treaty" implies a contract between sovereign independent nations, yet Indians were always in a position of inequality and dependence as negotiators, a fact that complicates their current attempts to regain their rights and tribal sovereignty. Prucha's impeccably researched book, based on a close analysis of every treaty, makes possible a thorough understanding of a legal dilemma whose legacy is so palpably felt today.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Preface Abbreviations Used in Footnotes Introduction: The Anomaly of Indian Treaties PART ONE. A TREATY SYSTEM 1. The Revolutionary War Years 2. Treaties of Peace after the Revolution 3. Treaty-Making Procedures under the Constitution 4. Confirming the Procedures: Other Treaties in the 1790s PART TWO. INSTRUMENTS OF FEDERAL POLICY 5. Testing the Treaty System: 1800 to the War of 1812 6. A Position of Dominance: The War of 1812 and After 7. Indian Removal and the Debate about Treaty Making 8. The Removal Period in the North 9. Patterns in Treaty Making 10. Treaties in the Expanding West 11. The Civil War Decade PART THREE. DETERIORATION 12. The End of Treaty Making 13. Treaty Substitutes 14. The Collapse of the Treaty System PART FOUR. RENEWAL: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 15. Treaties in the New Century 16. Treaties before the Supreme Court 17. Treaty-Rights Activism Appendices Index Picture Credits

About the Author :
Francis Paul Prucha, S.J. is Professor Emeritus of Histor at Marquette University. Among his many books is The Indians in American Society: From the Revolutionary War to the Present (California, 1985).

Review :
"Prucha . . . has tried to write a dispassionate history, and in these four succinct and readable essays he succeeds in a way that partisans cannot." "A most significant book. If the role of the historian is to deduce patterns and derive meaning by judicious and objective analysis, this volume constitutes a tour de force. No student of American Indian, American western, or American history should fail to examine it." "This small book is full of insights. . . . Prucha's view of the steady persistence of white paternalism and Indian dependency casts the historical complexities and ambiguities of federal Indian policy in a new light that seeks to avoid swampy polemics and preachy judgments. His book lets us better understand why the place of the Indian in American society raises questions that still confound us." "An excellent overview of U.S. Indian policy. Fr. Prucha makes a strong case for tribal self-sufficiency." "A useful, stimulating synthesis of a mature scholar's interpretations of two centuries of American Indian Policy. . . . which the educated public and American historians will appreciate."