Born of Lakes and Plains

 

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Title: Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West
Author: Anne F. Hyde
Publisher: W. W. Norton Company
Release Date: 2.15.22


Publisher’s Summary
Often overlooked, there is mixed blood at the heart of America. And at the heart of Native life for centuries there were complex households using intermarriage to link disparate communities and create protective circles of kin. Beginning in the seventeenth century, Native peoples—Ojibwes, Otoes, Cheyennes, Chinooks, and others—formed new families with young French, English, Canadian, and American fur traders who spent months in smoky winter lodges or at boisterous summer rendezvous. These families built cosmopolitan trade centers from Michilimackinac on the Great Lakes to Bellevue on the Missouri River, Bent’s Fort in the southern Plains, and Fort Vancouver in the Pacific Northwest. Their family names are often imprinted on the landscape, but their voices have long been muted in our histories. Anne F. Hyde’s pathbreaking history restores them in full.


Vividly combining the panoramic and the particular, Born of Lakes and Plains follows five mixed-descent families whose lives intertwined major events: imperial battles over the fur trade; the first extensions of American authority west of the Appalachians; the ravages of imported disease; the violence of Indian removal; encroaching American settlement; and, following the Civil War, the disasters of Indian war, reservations policy, and allotment. During the pivotal nineteenth century, mixed-descent people who had once occupied a middle ground became a racial problem drawing hostility from all sides. Their identities were challenged by the pseudo-science of blood quantum—the instrument of allotment policy—and their traditions by the Indian schools established to erase Native ways. As Anne F. Hyde shows, they navigated the hard choices they faced as they had for centuries: by relying on the rich resources of family and kin. Here is an indelible western history with a new human face.


My Review
Before reading this book I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about interactions between English settlers and Native Americans. I learned the "traditional" aspects from the viewpoint of colonizers throughout elementary, middle, and high school, but knew next to nothing from the viewpoint of Native Americans until my college courses. I only learned about Indian schools last year after researching a small storyline from an amazing movie (Let Him Go). I didn't realize I had never really thought about the intermarriage between Native people and the traders moving throughout their lands.  

Anne Hyde outlines the lives of 5 families made up of Canadian and American trappers and Native Americans, spanning from the late 1600s to the early 1900s. This look into the history of North America shows how trappers being adopted into various tribes through marriage helped the early development of the west.

I really enjoyed the topic of this book and the theme of the 5 families, but I was definitely confused several times. I wish there was some sort of family tree included for reference. (I read this as an e-ARC, but maybe there is in the final/hardback edition.)