The Civilization of the American Indian

1 primary work • 3 total works

Indians and Pioneers

by Grant Foreman

Published 1 December 1967

Indian Removal

by Grant Foreman

Published 1 March 1953

It is unlikely that any single book or document will ever earn a more firmly-fixed position of respect and authority than this distinguished volume by Grant Foreman. Originally published in 1932, on the date of the hundredth anniversary of the arrival in Oklahoma of the first Indians as a result of the United States government's relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Indian Removal remains today the definitive book in its field.

The forcible uprooting and expulsion of the 60,000 Indians comprising the Five Civilized Tribes, including the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole, unfolded a story without parallel in the history of the United States. For more than a decade thousands of tragedies and experiences of absorbing interest marked the removal over the ""Trail of Tears,"" but there were no chroniclers at hand to record them. Only occasionally did the tragedy and pathos of some phase of this history-making undertaking beguile a sympathetic officer to turn from routine and write a line or a paragraph of comment.

From fragments in thousands of manuscripts and in official and unofficial reports Grant Foreman gleaned the materials for this book to provide readers with an unbiased day-by-day recital of events.

The Five Civilized Tribes

by Grant Foreman

Published November 1966

Side by side with the westward drift of white Americans in the 1830's was the forced migration of the Five Civilized Tribes from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Both groups were deployed against the tribes of the prairies, both breaking the soil of the undeveloped hinterland. Both were striving in the years before the Civil War to found schools, churches, and towns, as well as to preserve orderly development through government and laws.

In this book Grant Foreman brings to light the singular effect the westward movement of Indians had in the cultivation and settlement of the Trans-Mississippi region. It shows the Indian genius at its best and conveys the importance of the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles to the nascent culture of the plains. Their achievements between 1830 and 1860 were of vast importance in the making of America.