In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington's small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government's auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation and violence. Unworthy Republic reveals how expulsion became national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women and children.

Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt's deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in U.S. expansion across the continent. Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought relentlessly against the policy while many U.S. citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation's values. When Congress passed the act, by a razor-thin margin, it authorised one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in the modern era marking a turning point for native peoples and for the United States.

In telling this gripping story Saunt shows how the politics and economics of white supremacy lay at the heart of the expulsion of Native Americans; how corruption, greed, and administrative indifference and incompetence contributed to the debacle of its implementation, and how the consequences still resonate today.

About the Author
Claudio Saunt is the Richard B. Russell Professor in American History at the University of Georgia. He is the author of award-winning books, including A New Order of Things; Black, White, and Indian; and West of the Revolution. He lives in Athens, Georgia.

Reviews
"Unworthy Republic is a powerful and lucid account, weaving together events with the people who experienced them up close... Saunt has written an unflinching book that reckons with this history and its legacy." -- Jennifer Szalai - The New York Times
"[Unworthy Republic] is a major achievement... [Saunt] manages to do something truly rare: destroy the illusion that history's course is inevitable and recover the reality of the multiple possibilities that confronted contemporaries." -- Nick Romeo - The Washington Post
"[A] much-needed rendering of a disgraceful episode in American history that has been too long misunderstood." -- Peter Cozzens - The Wall Street Journal
"Unworthy Republic is a study in power. It describes, in detail, the coming together of money, rhetoric, political ambition, and white-supremacist idealism. Saunt shows his readers the cost of a racial caste system in the United States." -- David Treuer - Foreign Affairs
"[Unworthy Republic] is a haunting story of racialized cruelty and greed, which came to define a pivotal period in U.S. and indigenous history alike... As Saunt persuasively observes, we have yet to reckon with them today." -- Caitlin Fitz
"One of the most important books published on U.S. history in recent years and should be required reading for all Americans." -- Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History, Harvard University, author of Empire of Cotton


Awards
Winner of Bancroft Prize 2021 and Ridenhour Book Prize 2021 and Robert F. Kennedy Book Award 2021. Short-listed for Phi Beta Kappa Ralph Waldo Emerson Award 2021. Long-listed for Cundill History Prize 2020 and National Book Award 2020.



Book Information
ISBN 9780393609844
Author Claudio Saunt
Format Hardback
Page Count 416
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 627g
Dimensions(mm) 239mm * 160mm * 36mm