A legacy of forced migration: the removal of the Miami Tribe in 1846

✍ Scribed by Berry, Kate A. ;Rinehart, Melissa A.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 216 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1077-3495
• DOI: 10.1002/ijpg.281

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In the first half of the nineteenth century, dozens of Indian tribes and tens of thousands of tribal members were forced to move and resettle hundreds of miles away from their traditional homes in the eastern and mid‐western US. This process – which has come to be known as tribal or Indian removal – was initiated as white settlers encroached upon tribal resources, and was facilitated by the political and military actions of state and federal governments. After years of resistance, the Miami Tribe was brought into the removal programme and the Tribe was split between Indiana and Kansas. Removal also operated on an ideological level, infecting the political identity of the Miami Tribe and its members. This paper provides a detailed study of forced removal in order to provide insights into the complexity of colonialism within which the Miami Tribe, the State, and settlers were operating, as well as to provide an understanding of how political identity was – and continues to be – entangled with the processes, events and places associated with tribal removal. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.