The Relentless Business of Treaties: How Indigenous Land Became U.S. Property

by Martin Case

The United States was the first country to be founded with private property as an organizing principle. The westward growth of the U.S. - the business of territory making -- was essentially the expansion of a system of property. This required supplanting any other relationships to the landscape, not on an individual level, but as an organizing principle. The U.S. enterprise was so successful that today it can be difficult for Americans to think of land as anything other than real estate. This book explores how making treaties for land cessions with Native American nations transformed human relationships to the land and became a profitable family business--for speculators, traders, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, and journalists.

Paperback. 224 pages.