Mr. Jefferson's Hammer

Mr. Jefferson's Hammer PDF Author: Robert M. Owens
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806182709
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest. Owens traces Harrison’s political career as secretary of the Northwest Territory, territorial delegate to Congress, and governor of Indiana Territory, as well as his military leadership and involvement with Indian relations. Thomas Jefferson, who was president during the first decade of the nineteenth century, found in Harrison the ideal agent to carry out his administration’s ruthless campaign to extinguish Indian land titles. More than a study of the man, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer is a cultural biography of his fellow settlers, telling how this first generation of post-Revolutionary Americans realized their vision of progress and expansionism. It surveys the military, political, and social world of the early Ohio Valley and shows that Harrison’s attitudes and behavior reflected his Virginia background and its eighteenth-century notions as much as his frontier milieu. To this day, we live with the echoes of Harrison’s proclamations, the boundaries set by his treaties, and the ramifications of his actions. Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer offers a much needed reappraisal of Harrison’s impact on the nation’s development and key lessons for understanding American sentiments in the early republic.

Mr. Jefferson's Hammer

Mr. Jefferson's Hammer PDF Author: Robert M. Owens
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806182709
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest. Owens traces Harrison’s political career as secretary of the Northwest Territory, territorial delegate to Congress, and governor of Indiana Territory, as well as his military leadership and involvement with Indian relations. Thomas Jefferson, who was president during the first decade of the nineteenth century, found in Harrison the ideal agent to carry out his administration’s ruthless campaign to extinguish Indian land titles. More than a study of the man, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer is a cultural biography of his fellow settlers, telling how this first generation of post-Revolutionary Americans realized their vision of progress and expansionism. It surveys the military, political, and social world of the early Ohio Valley and shows that Harrison’s attitudes and behavior reflected his Virginia background and its eighteenth-century notions as much as his frontier milieu. To this day, we live with the echoes of Harrison’s proclamations, the boundaries set by his treaties, and the ramifications of his actions. Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer offers a much needed reappraisal of Harrison’s impact on the nation’s development and key lessons for understanding American sentiments in the early republic.

Mr. Jefferson's Hammer

Mr. Jefferson's Hammer PDF Author: Robert Martin Owens
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806134826
Category : Frontier and pioneer life
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description


The Gods of Prophetstown

The Gods of Prophetstown PDF Author: Adam Jortner
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199765294
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
An original, readable narrative of the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe and the role of religion in the history of the American West

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Puffin Modern Classics)

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Puffin Modern Classics) PDF Author: Mildred D. Taylor
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101657944
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Winner of the Newbery Medal, this remarkably moving novel has impressed the hearts and minds of millions of readers. Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect. * "[A] vivid story.... Entirely through its own internal development, the novel shows the rich inner rewards of black pride, love, and independence."—Booklist, starred review

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams PDF Author: Paul C. Nagel
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307828190
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
February 21, 1848, the House of Representatives, Washington D.C.: Congressman John Quincy Adams, rising to speak, suddenly collapses at his desk; two days later, he dies in the Speaker’s chamber. The public mourning that followed, writes Paul C. Nagel, “exceeded anything previously seen in America. Forgotten was his failed presidency and his often cold demeanor. It was the memory of an extraordinary human being—one who in his last years had fought heroically for the right of petition and against a war to expand slavery—that drew a grateful people to salute his coffin in the Capitol and to stand by the railroad tracks as his bier was transported from Washington to Boston.” Nagel probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic, erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career spanned many offices: minister to Holland, Russia, and England, U.S. senator, secretary of state, president of the United States (1825-1829), and, finally, U.S. representative (the only ex-president to serve in the House). On the basis of a thorough study of Adams’ seventy-year diary, among a host of other documents, the author gives us a richer account than we have yet had of JQA’s life—his passionate marriage to Louisa Johnson, his personal tragedies (two sons lost to alcoholism), his brilliant diplomacy, his recurring depression, his exasperating behavior—and shows us why, in the end, only Abraham Lincoln’s death evoked a great out-pouring of national sorrow in nineteenth-century America. We come to see how much Adams disliked politics and hoped for more from life than high office; how he sought distinction in literacy and scientific endeavors, and drew his greatest pleasure from being a poet, critic, translator, essayist, botanist, and professor of oratory at Harvard; how tension between the public and private Adams vexed his life; and how his frustration kept his masked and aloof (and unpopular). Nagel’s great achievement, in this first biography of America’s sixth president in a quarter century, is finally to portray Adams in all his talent and complexity.

Surviving Genocide

Surviving Genocide PDF Author: Jeffrey Ostler
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300245262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
The first part of a sweeping two-volume history of the devastation brought to bear on Indian nations by U.S. expansion In this book, the first part of a sweeping two-volume history, Jeffrey Ostler investigates how American democracy relied on Indian dispossession and the federally sanctioned use of force to remove or slaughter Indians in the way of U.S. expansion. He charts the losses that Indians suffered from relentless violence and upheaval and the attendant effects of disease, deprivation, and exposure. This volume centers on the eastern United States from the 1750s to the start of the Civil War. An authoritative contribution to the history of the United States’ violent path toward building a continental empire, this ambitious and well-researched book deepens our understanding of the seizure of Indigenous lands, including the use of treaties to create the appearance of Native consent to dispossession. Ostler also documents the resilience of Native people, showing how they survived genocide by creating alliances, defending their towns, and rebuilding their communities.

Pen and Ink Witchcraft

Pen and Ink Witchcraft PDF Author: Colin G. Calloway
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199917302
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Pen and Ink Witchcraft provides a comprehensive survey of Indian treaty relations in America and traces the stories and the individuals behind key treaties that represent distinct phases in the shifting history of treaty making and the transfer of Indian homelands into American real estate.

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison PDF Author: Gail Collins
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805091181
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
William Henry Harrison died just 31 days after taking the oath of office in 1841. Today he is a curiosity in American history, but as Collins shows in this entertaining and revelatory biography, he and his career are worth a closer look.

The Borderland of Fear

The Borderland of Fear PDF Author: Patrick Bottiger
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 080329090X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Published through the Early American Places initiative, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Ohio River Valley was a place of violence in the nineteenth century, something witnessed on multiple stages ranging from local conflicts between indigenous and Euro-American communities to the Battle of Tippecanoe and the War of 1812. To describe these events as simply the result of American expansion versus Indigenous nativism disregards the complexities of the people and their motivations. Patrick Bottiger explores the diversity between and among the communities that were the source of this violence. As new settlers invaded their land, the Shawnee brothers Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh pushed for a unified Indigenous front. However, the multiethnic Miamis, Kickapoos, Potawatomis, and Delawares, who also lived in the region, favored local interests over a single tribal entity. The Miami-French trade and political network was extensive, and the Miamis staunchly defended their hegemony in the region from challenges by other Native groups. Additionally, William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, lobbied for the introduction of slavery in the territory. In its own turn, this move sparked heated arguments in newspapers and on the street. Harrisonians deflected criticism by blaming tensions on indigenous groups and then claiming that antislavery settlers were Indian allies. Bottiger demonstrates that violence, rather than being imposed on the region's inhabitants by outside forces, instead stemmed from the factionalism that was already present. The Borderland of Fear explores how these conflicts were not between nations and races but rather between cultures and factions.

Old Tip vs. the Sly Fox

Old Tip vs. the Sly Fox PDF Author: Richard J. Ellis
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
Usually remembered for its slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” the election of 1840 is also the first presidential election of which it might be truly said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Tackling a contest best known for log cabins, cider barrels, and catchy songs, this timely volume reveals that the election of 1840 might be better understood as a case study of how profoundly the economy shapes the presidential vote. Richard J. Ellis, a veteran scholar of presidential politics, suggests that the election pitting the Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren against Whig William Henry Harrison should also be remembered as the first presidential election in which a major political party selected—rather than merely anointed—its nominee at a national nominating convention. In this analysis, the convention’s selection, as well as Henry Clay’s post-convention words and deeds, emerge as crucial factors in the shaping of the nineteenth-century partisan nation. Exploring the puzzle of why the Whig Party’s political titan Henry Clay lost out to a relative political also-ran, Ellis teases out the role the fluctuating economy and growing antislavery sentiment played in the party’s fateful decision to nominate the Harrison-Tyler ticket. His work dismantles the caricature of the 1840 campaign (a.k.a. the “carnival campaign”) as all froth and no substance, instead giving due seriousness to the deeply held moral commitments, as well as anxieties about the political system, that informed the campaign. In Old Tip vs. the Sly Fox, the campaign of 1840 can finally be seen clearly for what it was: a contest of two profoundly different visions of policy and governance, including fundamental, still-pressing questions about the place of the presidency and Congress in the US political system.