Description: In Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian, Gary C. Anderson draws upon a vast wealth of previously unpublished sources to support his claim that the history of Euroamerican and Native American interaction is not one of genocide, as has often been claimed, but is, in almost all instances, more accurately called "ethnic cleansing." Having defined ethnic cleansing, the author then seeks to trace its application and operation through American history from the colonial era to about 1890.
Brief description: Gary Clayton Anderson, George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma, is author of The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875. His book The Indian Southwest, 1580-1830: Ethnogenesis and Reinvention won the Angie Debo Prize and the publication award from the San Antonio Conservation Society.
Review Quotes: "Gary Clayton Anderson has uttered the words that most American historians have, for a variety of reasons, been unwilling to use. In evaluating American Indian policy as an early example of ethnic cleansing, he has launched an important debate. More than just a rephrasing of existing historical narratives, Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian contains important new research."--Richard White, author of The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815