Synopses & Reviews
Debo's classic work tells the tragic story of the spoliation of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations at the turn of the last century in what is now the state of Oklahoma. After their earlier forced removal from traditional lands in the southeastern states--culminating in the devastating 'trail of tears' march of the Cherokees--these five so-called Civilized Tribes held federal land grants in perpetuity, or "as long as the waters run, as long as the grass grows." Yet after passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, the land was purchased back from the tribes, whose members were then systematically swindled out of their private parcels.
The publication of Debo's book fundamentally changed the way historians viewed, and wrote about, American Indian history. Writers from Oliver LaFarge, who characterized it as "a work of art," to Vine Deloria, Jr., and Larry McMurtry acknowledge debts to Angie Debo. Fifty years after the book's publication, McMurtry praised Debo's work in the New York Review of Books: "The reader," he wrote, "is pulled along by her strength of mind and power of sympathy."
Because the book's findings implicated prominent state politicians and supporters of the University of Oklahoma, the university press there was forced to reject the book in .... for fear of libel suits and backlash against the university. Nonetheless, the director of the University of Oklahoma Press at the time, Joseph Brandt, invited Debo to publish her book with Princeton University Press, where he became director in 1938.
Review
"This book was first published in 1940, not a particularly receptive year for books about the betrayal of the American Indian. [It] is now extremely timely and should be picked up by that increasing number of concerned citizens who want to know the true history."--Publishers Weekly
Review
This book was first published in 1940, not a particularly receptive year for books about the betrayal of the American Indian. [It] is now extremely timely and should be picked up by that increasing number of concerned citizens who want to know the true history. Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
The classic book that exposed the scandal of the dispossession of native land by American settlers
And Still the Waters Run tells the tragic story of the liquidation of the independent Indian republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about seventy thousand of these Indians owned the eastern half of the area that is now the state of Oklahoma, a territory immensely wealthy in farmland, forest, coal mines, and untapped oil pools. Farmers, cattlemen, and coal diggers held their land in common and maintained their own legislative bodies and educational and judicial systems. Their political and economic status in the area was guaranteed by treaties and patents from the federal government. But white people began to settle among them, and by 1890 these immigrants were overwhelmingly in the majority. Congress therefore abrogated treaties that it had promised would last "as long as the waters run," and when Oklahoma was admitted to the Union in 1907, the Indians received what Angie Debo calls the "perilous gift of American citizenship."
This book--which Oliver La Farge labeled a "work of art"--documents the orgy of exploitation that followed. Within a generation, the Indians were virtually stripped of their holdings, and were rescued from starvation only through public charity. Discovery of oil only intensified the struggle, and "grafting off the Indians" attained the status of a major industry.
Synopsis
Debo's classic work tells the tragic story of the spoliation of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations at the turn of the last century in what is now the state of Oklahoma. After their earlier forced removal from traditional lands in the southeastern states--culminating in the devastating 'trail of tears' march of the Cherokees--these five so-called Civilized Tribes held federal land grants in perpetuity, or "as long as the waters run, as long as the grass grows." Yet after passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, the land was purchased back from the tribes, whose members were then systematically swindled out of their private parcels.
The publication of Debo's book fundamentally changed the way historians viewed, and wrote about, American Indian history. Writers from Oliver LaFarge, who characterized it as "a work of art," to Vine Deloria, Jr., and Larry McMurtry acknowledge debts to Angie Debo. Fifty years after the book's publication, McMurtry praised Debo's work in the New York Review of Books: "The reader," he wrote, "is pulled along by her strength of mind and power of sympathy."
Because the book's findings implicated prominent state politicians and supporters of the University of Oklahoma, the university press there was forced to reject the book in .... for fear of libel suits and backlash against the university. Nonetheless, the director of the University of Oklahoma Press at the time, Joseph Brandt, invited Debo to publish her book with Princeton University Press, where he became director in 1938.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [396]-402) and index.