American Indians on the Cotton Frontier: Changing Economic Relations with Citizens and Slaves in the Mississippi Territory

Usner, Daniel H.

doi:10.2307/1903377

Cited by 5 publications

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“…These debts were carefully recorded. As the terms of trade for certain goods, such as deer skins, shifted to the detriment of the tribes, the federal government offered tribal land cessions as a method to pay off the debts (Unser, 1985 ). Continuing with a colonial-era tradition of proselytizing activity, missionaries and conversion to Christianity were also an explicit part of Knox’s plans (Knox, 1789 ).…”

Section: Background On Federal Indian Policy and Assimilationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assimilation and economic development: the case of federal Indian policy

Miller

2023

Public Choice

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Throughout the nineteenth century, federal Indian policy oscillated between two extreme positions: assimilation versus isolation. While scholars have often been interested in the impact of past federal policy on current levels of economic development among American Indian tribes, none have explicitly examined the influence of federal assimilation policy on long-run economic development. In this paper, I take advantage of tribal-level variation in the application of federal policies to estimate the effect of assimilation on long-run economic performance. To quantify the impact of such policies, I introduce a novel measure of cultural assimilation: the prevalence of traditional indigenous names relative to common American first names. To calculate the distribution of name types, I have gathered the names and locations for all American Indians enumerated in the 1900 United States census. After classifying each name, I calculated the reservation-specific share of non-indigenous names. I estimate the relationship between cultural assimilation in 1900 and per capita income from 1970 through 2020. I find that historical levels of assimilation are consistently associated with higher levels of per capita income in all census years. The results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of cultural and institutional controls and regional fixed effects.

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Section: Background On Federal Indian Policy and Assimilationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assimilation and economic development: the case of federal Indian policy

Miller

2023

Public Choice

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“A Savage Feast They Made of It”: John Adams and the Paradoxical Origins of Federal Indian Policy

Usner¹

2013

jer

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When it comes to early U.S. leaders’ ideas and actions toward Indian nations, those of John Adams remain relatively unexplored. By closely examining Adams’s relationship with American Indians—more intermittent and marginal in his own thinking when compared with Washington and Jefferson—this essay identifies a set of paradoxes important for understanding the complicated origins of American Indian policy. The Massachusetts politician’s apprehension over warfare with Indian nations peaked during the Revolution, yet his face-to-face contact with Indian people during those years evoked a mix of curiosity, delight, and admiration. Adams wrote much less about Indians than did other early national leaders, but most of his printed references to them are found in nothing less than his major writing about government. As first vice-president of the United States, Adams rather silently witnessed the creation of Indian policy during the Washington Administration. His own presidential administration nevertheless benefited significantly from what had been accomplished during those formative years. Although Adams expressed relatively little interest in the origins and customs of American Indians, he did plenty to embed them deeply within the founding generation’s contrived rationale for American independence from Great Britain. This last paradox is crucial for understanding inconsistencies in U.S. Indian policy as well as shortcomings in historical writing about early U.S.-Indian relations.

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Weak Network: Faulkner's Transpacific Reparations

Dimock¹

2018

Modernism/modernity

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American Indians on the Cotton Frontier: Changing Economic Relations with Citizens and Slaves in the Mississippi Territory

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Assimilation and economic development: the case of federal Indian policy

Assimilation and economic development: the case of federal Indian policy

“A Savage Feast They Made of It”: John Adams and the Paradoxical Origins of Federal Indian Policy

Weak Network: Faulkner's Transpacific Reparations

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