Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

by Daniel K. Richter

Book Overview

In the beginning, North America was Indian country. But only in the beginning. After the opening act of the great national drama, Native Americans yielded to the westward rush of European settlers. Or so the story usually goes. Yet, for three centuries after Columbus, Native people controlled most of eastern North America and profoundly shaped its destiny. In Facing East from Indian Country , Daniel K. Richter keeps Native people center-stage throughout...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674011171
• ISBN13: 9780674011175
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Informative and analytical

Mr. Richter does a fine job of deftly parsing small bits of information to imagine the Indian American's point of view. I was rather expecting an I-hate-America diatribe, but that's not at all what this is. It DOES show that between the clash of cultures in North America, the natives were much more adept to adapting (because they had no choice) than were the Europeans. And adapt they did, somewhat successfully until the war of Independence was fought between the US and Britian. After that, well, there were so many indefensible acts by the new US that it came down to "civilize-or-die" to the natives. Even those that did civilize were not safe, being punished by vigilantes for 'outrages' by other Indians - not even of the same linguistic group. Those few who understood the complicated culture of the natives were by and large ignored, while small bands of cunning Indians would sell land that wasn't even theirs. Sometimes it is said that there's enough blame to go around; if by that it's meant that because all Natives were not "Good Injuns" we should exterminate those who refuse to be deported, well okay. Some say slavery was the darkest blot on our history, I believe it was the lies, broken treaties, forced removals, genocide and outright stealing of land that is that darkest chapter. Read also Eve Ball's "indeh", and Britton Davis' "The Truth About Geronimo."

Thinking Opposite and Otherwise

Most historians have sufficient presence of mind to clear from their brains the Panglossian cant which insists we live in the best of all possible worlds. The best histories, of which Daniel K. Richter's Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America is most certainly one, are able to envision a historical narrative where paths not taken would lead to a counterfactual narrative to our own. To this end, Richter musters the sources traditional to any historian--varied secondary sources, the journals of participants of historical interactions between Natives and Europeans, literary sources by Natives and sundry oral sources likely to be their own. Utilizing a vast knowledge of the period between the first arrival of Europeans in the Americas through the period of "Jacksonian Democracy," Richter paints a lucid picture of European interaction with the tribes of North America, and how it altered the behavior of all parties involved. This narrative is neither a record of triumphant civilization moving west, nor is it an account of genocide moving ferociously from East--though Richter makes clear both of these fit, respectively, into American myth and American realty--he is much more concerned with how the cultures interacted with each other in creating the circumstances that Natives lived under and how they viewed their changing world. Richter's approach to understanding how the world did and would appear to Natives is grounded in the understanding that commerce, politics, environment, and ideologies will be discernibly altered by any new presence. Just as North America became a new market for European goods, so Europe allowed for the prospering of some tribes through a need for raw materials such as leather and beaver pelts. The same interaction could, and did, sometimes, lead to intertribal and international conflict (as well as a combination of both at once) or to the unforeseen environmental degradations associated with depopulating a large area of beavers. Richter's understanding of history acknowledges the law of unforeseen consequences--a law that is in fact central to his explanation of how so many Native communities were wiped out, radically altered, even created by European diseases--and how a good deal of the history between Europeans and Natives was the result reciprocal relations and not conflict, to say nothing of an irreconcilable conflict. Perhaps the most interesting area Richter explores is in the realm of culture. The importation of European goods, African slaves, and Christianity led to profound changes in the ways that many natives lived. The foreseeable creations of Moravian, Catholic, or Anglican communities of Natives; changes in work wrought by iron made tools and warfare through the importation of muskets; expansion of world views due to contact with truly foreign cultures: all of these were the logical consequences of European arrival in North America. These facts were do as much to reciproci

nothing short of spectacular

This book focuses on the Native American perspective of European colonization from early 14th century to the 19th century. It is detailed, well organized, the information is very thorough and completely cited. Casual readers will find the analysis fascinating and provocative. History students will find valuble insight and information related to the early Native American history. This book is extremely well written and the history is very well analyzed. The new perspective it provides gives the reader a much different view of the early developments of America. Excellent analysis.

we need more voices like these

There are far too few books like this, that dare to make the imaginative leap to express the point of view of another culture. Mr. Richter's achievement is to give us a way to stand in the "shoes" of those who greeted us when we arrived on these shores, tried to understand us and live with us, and ultimately were decimated by the policies that we, as immigrant peoples, put in place. I would highly recommend that readers pair this with Kent Nerburn's Neither Wolf nor Dog, another work that takes us deep inside the hearts and minds of those who inhabited this land before us. We need more books like these. They show that it is not impossible to enter into the self consciousness and self understanding of people who see the American experience through very different eyes.

A different view

This book is by no means the first, nor the most comprehensive analysis of early American history with a Native American perspective. The writing style is straightforward and matter-of-fact and not as dramatic or emotional as the tale as told in BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. Nevertheless this book is evocative of Dee Brown's book largely because of the same emphasis on Native Americans. Also because it too uses Native American history and traditions as the framework in which to look at North America, from discovery through to the 17th century. One of the things that happens when FACING EAST FROM INDIAN COUNTRY is that you get a different picture of time and events. Traditionally the story of early America is a westward moving one, and one which quickly becomes a story about Europeans and an emerging people called American's.One of the most profound impressions this book will leave with you is a view of the East Coast of North America as dominantly Indian country for more than a hundred years after initial settlement. Even more startling is Richter's well reasoned argument that Eastern North America only ceased to be Indian country when following 1776, the now fully emergent American's "denied the continent's first peoples a place in the nation they were creating."