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Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History Edited by Philip J. Schwarz (review)

Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History Edited by Philip J. Schwarz (review) JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC (Spring 2014) otherwise critically important work: Indian population. In early chapters, to establish the fact that Indians lived on what white policymakers called ``vacant land,'' Unrau estimates mobile western Indian numbers at over 100,000. The native Osage in Missouri comprised 6,000; for removed Indians to Kansas Territory, Unrau gives an estimate of 10,000. He does not adequately explain the declension process by which these peoples became ``a few thousand Indians.'' In addition, the tragedy--what we may even call a holocaust--of Indians and alcohol has a definite history east of the Mississippi that also involves odious traders, corrupt military officers and fur-trade officials, and failure to enforce alcohol restrictions. Sad accounts of Indian addiction abound, and it is addiction we must recognize here. Learned behavior leads to alcohol use, but biology causes addiction and death. It is important to reference broad continental patterns of indigenous alcohol use, if we are to fit this cogent and convincing study into a much larger pattern. Unrau has shown that in the presence of an unregulated and massively profitable trade, an old evil can become even stronger. The roads to Taos and Santa Fe brought in and sustained http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of the Early Republic University of Pennsylvania Press

Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History Edited by Philip J. Schwarz (review)

Egerton, Douglas R.
Journal of the Early Republic , Volume 34 (1) – Jan 28, 2014
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Publisher
University of Pennsylvania Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.
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1553-0620
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Abstract

JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC (Spring 2014) otherwise critically important work: Indian population. In early chapters, to establish the fact that Indians lived on what white policymakers called ``vacant land,'' Unrau estimates mobile western Indian numbers at over 100,000. The native Osage in Missouri comprised 6,000; for removed Indians to Kansas Territory, Unrau gives an estimate of 10,000. He does not adequately explain the declension process by which these peoples became ``a few thousand Indians.'' In addition, the tragedy--what we may even call a holocaust--of Indians and alcohol has a definite history east of the Mississippi that also involves odious traders, corrupt military officers and fur-trade officials, and failure to enforce alcohol restrictions. Sad accounts of Indian addiction abound, and it is addiction we must recognize here. Learned behavior leads to alcohol use, but biology causes addiction and death. It is important to reference broad continental patterns of indigenous alcohol use, if we are to fit this cogent and convincing study into a much larger pattern. Unrau has shown that in the presence of an unregulated and massively profitable trade, an old evil can become even stronger. The roads to Taos and Santa Fe brought in and sustained

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Journal of the Early Republic – University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: Jan 28, 2014

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