Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Charles Curtis, a mixed-blood member of the Kansa-Kaws, was one of the most important figures in the debate over federal Indian policy during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the Indian expert in Congress, he had significant power in forumulating and carrying out the assimilationist program that had been instituted, particularly by the Dawes Act, in the 1880s. This book shows that without the cooperation of the mixed-bloods, dispossession of Indian lands by the U.S. government would have been much more difficult to accomplish. The relationship between the metis and the loss of Indian lands, never before fully explored, is revealed.
Synopsis
This book shows that without the cooperation of the "mixed-bloods," or part-Indians, dispossession of Indian lands by the U.S. Government in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would have been much more difficult to accomplish. The relationship between the metis and the loss of Indian lands, never before fully explored, is revealed in Unrau's study of Charles Curtis, a mixed-blood member of the Kansa-kaws.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. "What Is an Indian?"
2. Kinship Beginnings
3. The Estate
4. Born in a Log House
5. The Estate Endangered
6. A Mixed-Blood on the Reservation
7. The Mixed-Blood Mounted
8. "Our Charley"
9. Whispering in Washington
10. Easy Allotment
11. Congressional Incompetent
12. A Different Path
Epilogue: The White Man's Law and the Curtis Indian Estate
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index