Rich Indians: Native People and the Problem of Wealth in American History - Hardcover

Harmon, Alexandra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807834238 ISBN 13: 9780807834237

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010

Synopsis

Long before lucrative tribal casinos sparked controversy, Native Americans amassed other wealth that provoked intense debate about the desirability, morality, and compatibility of Indian and non-Indian economic practices. Skillfully blending social, cultural, and economic history, Alexandra Harmon examines seven such instances of Indian affluence and the dilemmas they presented both for Native Americans and for Euro-Americans---dilemmas rooted in the colonial origins of the modern American economy.

This wide-ranging book looks at controversies concerning Powhatan economic status and aims during the Virginia colony's first years; the ambitions of some bicultural eighteenth-century Creeks and Mohawks; prospering Indians of the Southeast in the early 1800s; inequality among removed tribes during the Gilded Age; the spending of oil-rich Osages in the Roaring Twenties; resurgent tribal communities from Alaska to Maine in the 1970s; and casinos that have drawn gamblers to Indian country across the United States since the 1990s. Harmon's study not only comples us to look beyond stereotypes of greedy whites and impoverished Indians, but also convincingly demonstrates that Indians deserve a prominent place in American economic history and in the history of American ideas.

About this title

About the Author

Alexandra Harmon is associate professor of American Indian studies at the University of Washington. She is editor of The Power of Promises: Perspectives on Northwest Indian Treaties and author of Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identities around Puget Sound.

From the Inside Flap

Long before lucrative tribal casinos sparked controversy, Native Americans amassed other wealth that provoked intense debate about the desirability, morality, and compatibility of Indian and non-Indian economic practices. Blending social, cultural, and economic history, Alexandra Harmon examines seven such instances of Indian affluence and the dilemmas they presented both for Native Americans and for Euro-Americans--dilemmas rooted in the colonial origins of the modern American economy. Harmon's study not only compels us to look beyond stereotypes of greedy whites and poor Indians, but also convincingly demonstrates that Indians deserve a prominent place in American economic history and in the history of American ideas through the twentieth century.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807834238
• ISBN 13: 9780807834237
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400