Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny | 
 enlarge | Creators: Robert J. Miller, Elizabeth Furse
Publisher: Bison Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 197731
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 16.2 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0803215983
Dewey Decimal Number: 323.1197
EAN: 9780803215986
ASIN: 0803215983
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
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Product Description
Native America, Discovered and Conquered takes a fresh look at American history through the lens of the Doctrine of Discovery—the legal basis that Europeans and Americans used to lay claim to the land of the indigenous peoples they “discovered.” Robert J. Miller illustrates how the American colonies used the Doctrine of Discovery against the Indian nations from 1606 forward. Thomas Jefferson used the doctrine to exert American authority in the Louisiana Territory, to win the Pacific Northwest from European rivals, and to “conquer” the Indian nations. In the broader sense, these efforts began with the Founding Fathers and with Thomas Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery, and eventually the Doctrine of Discovery became part of American law, as it still is today. Miller shows how Manifest Destiny grew directly out of the legal elements and policies of the Doctrine of Discovery and how Native peoples, whose rights stood in the way of this destiny, were “discovered” and then “conquered.” Miller’s analysis of the principles of discovery brings a new perspective and valuable insights to the study of Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, the Louisiana Purchase, the Pacific Northwest, American expansionism, and U.S. Indian policy. This Bison Books edition includes a new afterword by the author.
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The first birthright commons ever privatized April 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is an important book. I first commented on the hardback when it came out, but I've since cited it in many pieces of my own scholarship. It is well written, well organized, and well documented. So I want to endorse the paper back edition too. It should influence a number of fields - history, economics, and law most of all. Professor Miller's thesis is that a very well-developed and refined legal doctrine - the Doctrine of Discovery - provided the grounding for the seizure and settlement of the North American continent by European nations. However ethnocentric, racist and self-serving it may have been, it adequately served as justification for what was little more than a crude land-grab. Despite its moral and widespread appeal to nationalists, financiers, and settlers, it would never pass muster today. But, for all the harm and pain it wrought, it was then allied with historical forces that made it unstoppable and inexorable. Euro-Americans must today live with this history, however unpalatable.
Professor Miller is helped by his willingness to be interdisciplinary in his exploration. He himself is an Associate Professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, as well as being Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. As a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma, he has the ability to step outside the Eurocentric paradigm of legal reasoning on which so many of our notions of real property rest. But he also relies on a rich vein of historical literature with which he treats in a commendable way.
The subject, however, is one which calls for an even broader sweep than he has been able to master, and an understanding of economic theory as it existed prior to the 20th century would have been very helpful to him. Classical economics - extending as it did from Adam Smith to the culminating figure of Henry George -- is really what he further needed. Understanding of some of its basic tenets would have served this scholarly treatise well, but at least is now an invitation for a new realm of historical exploration.
The strongest advocates of the classical economics tradition today mostly go by the name Georgists, after its culminating figure, Henry George. This approach can offer further insight to what is the weakest part of a very good book. But exploring this dimension can be done at another place and time; Professor Miller can't be expected to know every academic discipline. Lawyers appreciate that title to land is multifaceted, sometimes understood as a "bundle of rights." One element of this so-called "bundle," separable in ways that can offer promising compromises, is the occurrence of economic rent, or ground rent. A Georgist approach would grant use of land to one group, and collect the ground rent to pass to another. It's an often-cited solution that deserves more examination for today's difficult Indian land claims. Those wishing to explore this tradition can go to www.henrygeorge.org, and to any number of links therefrom.
I also want to recommend www.onthecommons.org and www.wealthandwant.com. The sad thing is that same land grab is continuing today -- it's not just the land we've grabbed and sold off to private interests, we're now doing the same with water, the electromagnetic spectrum, and even the air! James Ridgeway's book, It's all for Sale, treats it well. But a good complement to Bob Miller's book is Lindsay Robertson's Conquest by Law. It's more on how Native Americans were deprived of what was theirs. Great stuff!
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