The iron horse in Indian Country : Native Americans and railroads in the US West / Alessandra La Rocca Link.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Link, Alessandra La Rocca, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indians of North America--West (U.S.)--History--19th century.

Indians of North America.

Railroads--Political aspects--West (U.S.).

Railroads.

Railroads--Social aspects--West (U.S.).

Indians of North America--West (U.S.)--Government relations.

Indians of North America--Land tenure--West (U.S.).

Settler colonialism--West (U.S.).

Settler colonialism.

Indians of North America--West (U.S.)--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations, maps

Other Title:

Native Americans and railroads in the US West

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2025.

Summary:

"The Iron Horse in Indian Country: Native Americans and Railroads in the U.S. West explores how Indigenous peoples across the trans-Mississippi West adapted to the "railroad revolution" of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Historians have long pondered the profound and far-reaching role of railroads in transforming the United States' economic, political, social, and physical landscapes. This book decenters and reframes this work by spotlighting how Native Americans incorporated railroads into their own socio-economic, political, and cultural networks. This Indigenous process of incorporation challenges deep-seated stereotypes of Indians as either violently resisting the juggernaut of the Iron Horse, or simply vanishing at the first blast of a locomotive's whistle. It begins with a study of Indigenous contributions to the Pacific Railway Surveys of the 1850s and extends through to the rise of two significant intertribal organizations: The Society of American Indians and the Native American Church. The work charts two key trends in railroad colonialism: the rise of eminent domain as the legal backing for Indigenous dispossession, and the role of railroad expansion in the decision to end treaty relations between Native nations and the federal government. And yet this book demonstrates that, even as railroad-driven settler colonialism brought disease, economic displacement, and dispossession to Indigenous communities, Native peoples eventually turned the railroad into a literal and figurative vehicle of survival, appropriating and repurposing this novel technology to establish themselves as decisive actors in a modern world"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : the needles hogan

Beyond the grid

Gridded in ink, iron, and blood

Railway journeys : iron roads to Washington

The twilight of treaty-making

Negotiating the rush

Railway journeys : heart work

Indians at work

Mobilizing for indigenous futures

Railway journeys : Kiowa travels

Conclusion : trickster tales of Indians and technology.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from digital cover(viewed on March 12, 2025).

Other Format:

Print version: Link, Alessandra La Rocca. Iron horse in Indian Country

ISBN:

9780197674437

0197674437

0197674429

9780197674420

OCLC:

1500259388

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license