The Oneida Indian Journey: From NY to Wisconsin, 1784-1860, edited by Laurence M. Hauptman (TPB, 1999, $2)
Once again, Natives "lost" their lands to white Europeans. White Americans wanted the land. They wanted to build roads and canals. They wanted the Syracuse salt mines. Farmers wanted land to settle on. (The NY population had doubled in the 20 years since 1800.) The government wanted to pay its bills with the profit from land sales. Land speculators just wanted the Natives gone. Land without worries of a Native attack sold for more than land where Natives still lived. It did not seem to matter that the Oneida's were one of the few Native tribes who fought against the British in our two wars. Nor that many of them had become farmers, and Christian. They were still Native, and needed to go somewhere where they could learn to be "civilized".
Treaties were made that leased Native land to whites, except to the whites, that meant the land was now legally theirs. The signers of the treaty were not tribal leaders, but what difference did that make. So the Oneidas, probably because they were the weakest of the Confederation, were forced to move either to Wisconsin or Ontario. (Only 200 Oneidas were somehow left behind.). Once there, missionaries fought each other for control of the people. So did the various factions of Natives. Most people just felt lost. Mix alcohol into this chaos, and you have real misery.
Look for this book on the new non-fiction table, avail. 3/17. (Later- N Am.)
