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The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation
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George Washington's place in the foundations of the Republic remains unrivalled. His life story--from his beginnings as a surveyor and farmer, to colonial soldier in the Virginia Regiment, leader of the Patriot cause, commander of the Continental Army, and finally first president of the United States--reflects the narrative of the nation he guided into existence. There is,
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Hardcover, 620 pages
Published
April 6th 2018
by Oxford University Press
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Start your review of The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation

“In the course of almost fifty years [George] Washington grew from a young man out of his depth in the cultural practices, foreign policies, and geopolitical strategies of Indian country to the most powerful man on the continent, whose policies and precedents affected the lives and futures of thousands of Indian people. He had spent his life grasping for Indian land, although he never called it that. He had fought alongside Indian allies, and he had waged war against Indian people, Indian towns
...more

George Washington's nickname was "Conotocaurius" (Town Destroyer/Burner) by the Iroquois Native Americans. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this well-researched book of American history that was never taught to us in school. Eye opening explanation of George Washington, his family and how they "acquired" the lands that they desired.
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Even after all the books written about George Washington, this is an important new look at the first president, and focused on his dealings with the native peoples of the colonial American frontier. It's well-researched, with good and pertinent maps and illustrations, with clear prose and narrative, and it's not a flattering portrait. We find Washington, as a young man, begin as a land surveyor, and quickly become a speculator in frontier lands, at a time when land speculators -- especially in V
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“Washington knew what the Indians knew: the war in the West was a war for Indian land”. “In Washington’s day, the government dealt with Indians as foreign nations rather than domestic subjects.” So, encroaching on the lands of others has been US foreign policy since day one (and even before). Natives accurately called George Washington “Conotocarious” which means “Town Destroyer” or “Devourer of Villages”. Washington even took pride in the name. George was originally a surveyor. “Surveyors were
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Formative years: President Washington’s efforts to reform the new nation on Native American land
George Washington spent his life turning the Native American land for the new republic as well as his personal real estate. He believed that land acquired for a song would sell for a fortune. When European immigrants flooded the country, he owned extensive lands in what is now known as VA, WV, MD and PA. White immigrants settled in western territories in United States, they helped entrench slave labo ...more
George Washington spent his life turning the Native American land for the new republic as well as his personal real estate. He believed that land acquired for a song would sell for a fortune. When European immigrants flooded the country, he owned extensive lands in what is now known as VA, WV, MD and PA. White immigrants settled in western territories in United States, they helped entrench slave labo ...more

"Yes, but do you have a flag?" (credit: Eddie Izzard)
A comprehensive, if sometimes dense, history of George Washington's interactions with indigenous peoples of America across his life as surveyor, British subject, Soldier, Revolutionary general, and President.
Calloway's 2018 survey of Washington and the Amer. Indians is less about Washington himself than it is about the Revolutionary generation's interactions with the dozens of tribes and hundreds of tribal leaders they encountered from the 17 ...more
A comprehensive, if sometimes dense, history of George Washington's interactions with indigenous peoples of America across his life as surveyor, British subject, Soldier, Revolutionary general, and President.
Calloway's 2018 survey of Washington and the Amer. Indians is less about Washington himself than it is about the Revolutionary generation's interactions with the dozens of tribes and hundreds of tribal leaders they encountered from the 17 ...more

This book is pretty dense, which made it a little hard for me to retain specific information in it, but the overall story it tells and the way it recontextualizes George Washington's life is interesting and valuable.
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I took a week long Gilder Lehrman class at my alma mater, Dartmouth College, in the summer of 2016, and it was taught by Colin Calloway, so I'm a bit partial to this book. I found that it really succeeded in meeting its goal of putting the world of the American Indians, most notably their interaction with the European colonists (and then American citizens), right at the center of the history of the nation in the last half of the eighteenth century. There was never any doubt that the contest betw
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A broad, well-written and insightful work.
Calloway ably covers how Washington’s self-interest, ignorance and prejudice influenced his dealing with the natives, and emphasizes a common theme throughout all of his dealings with the Indians: Washington really wanted to treat the tribes fairly, but still wanted their land even more. He covers Washington’s ideas of turning the Indians into farmers and why it didn’t work, how difficult it was to make a lasting peace when the settlers kept expanding we ...more
Calloway ably covers how Washington’s self-interest, ignorance and prejudice influenced his dealing with the natives, and emphasizes a common theme throughout all of his dealings with the Indians: Washington really wanted to treat the tribes fairly, but still wanted their land even more. He covers Washington’s ideas of turning the Indians into farmers and why it didn’t work, how difficult it was to make a lasting peace when the settlers kept expanding we ...more

This book is amazing. If you have any interest in the early years of this country, the Native Americans, and our first president— read this book. I knew little about Washington as a person, only as I was taught about him in school. I also knew little about the Native American tribes and their leaders at that time. This book opened a window on what really happened in our country's early history and the role Washington and the Native Americans played. It's a bit long but worth the read. Very well
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A major takeaway of this book: What name did the Indians give both George Washington and his great-grandfather John? “Town Destroyer”! It was a moniker George wore with pride. In a major way, he often felt he had to “destroy an Indian village to save it.” And, if his destruction of Indian lives was not immediate, it was eventual in that the burning of crops led to starvation when the Indians did not find food through difficult migration.
This book is not for the casual reader. It is a dense, scho ...more
This book is not for the casual reader. It is a dense, scho ...more

Read this for book group this month. Washington's journals provided a huge amount of information to scholar Colin Calloway as he took a hard look at our nation's first president's interest in land expansion and the diplomacy he carried out with numerous Indian nations in the mid-late 1700s. Calloway definitely reinforces that land was wealth, and the amount of land that European settlers (like Washington's family) assumed was theirs, offers a good look at our early wealth in this country: stolen
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Colin Calloway's study provides a wealth of excellent historical context to the problems, conflicts, and proposed solutions relating to Indigenous Americans in the colonial and early national decades of the country. Resistance and adaptation.
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A major takeaway of this book: What name did the Indians give both George Washington and his great-grandfather John? “Town Destroyer”! It was a moniker George wore with pride. In a major way, he often felt he had to “destroy an Indian village to save it.” And, if his destruction of Indian lives was not immediate, it was eventual in that the burning of crops led to starvation when the Indians did not find food through difficult migration.
This book is not for the casual reader. It is a dense, scho ...more
This book is not for the casual reader. It is a dense, scho ...more

It was very interesting to think about the early history of the country with the Native Americans as the main players rather than as a sidebar. I found his treatment of Washington to be pretty fair. He wasn't perfect but mostly he had good intentions and everyone is human and seeks to gain benefit for themselves.
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This is the last of the National Book Awards shortlist books I was able to read before the awards, but I'm a little slow getting to a review! I found it a bit of a slow read as well. While the information it contained was fascinating, the writing didn't do the material justice. It did make me realize that there was an amazing amount of diversity and inter-tribal politicking among Native Americans during Washington's times that gets completely glossed over in most histories. There were an incredi
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Review title: Founding Father, Town Destroyer
Early in his career as a military leader facing the Native Americans in battle, George Washington was given the Native American name Conotocarious, meaning "Town Destroyer." While we learn the outline of Washington's career in school, his time in the western wilderness of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Ohio Valley is often brushed over. Calloway has written this history to fill in the brush strokes and reveal how and how much Washington affected and ...more
Early in his career as a military leader facing the Native Americans in battle, George Washington was given the Native American name Conotocarious, meaning "Town Destroyer." While we learn the outline of Washington's career in school, his time in the western wilderness of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Ohio Valley is often brushed over. Calloway has written this history to fill in the brush strokes and reveal how and how much Washington affected and ...more

This is not a book to be read in one sitting. However, it is a well-researched account accessible to the non-specialist. I was surprised how little I knew about the Indian policies articulated by Washington and their lasting affect. The book also describes Indians as actors, a real force to be reckoned with in the colonial period and the early years of nationhood.

“In the course of almost fifty years Washington grew from a young man out of his depth in the cultural practices, foreign policies, and geopolitical strategies of Indian country to the most powerful man on the continent, whose policies and precedents affected the lives and futures of thousands of Indian people. He had spent his life grasping for Indian land, although he never called it that. He had fought alongside Indian allies, and he had waged war against Indian people, Indian towns, and Indi...more

You'll never look at George Washington the same after reading this rather lengthy and comprehensive work. And all in all, that's a good thing. Washington emerges as a complex and very human person rather than the near mythological hero of grade school texts.
Washington was very much a man of his times and of his class, the Virginian planters. As a young man he was ambitious to promote himself and to build a fortune. The former he attempted to achieve by putting himself forward for military offi ...more
Washington was very much a man of his times and of his class, the Virginian planters. As a young man he was ambitious to promote himself and to build a fortune. The former he attempted to achieve by putting himself forward for military offi ...more

Mar 22, 2020
Cindy Leighton
rated it
it was amazing
Shelves:
us-history,
biography-autobiography-memoir
I mean I knew we took this land from the Ojibwe, the Seneca, the Cherokee, Wyandotte, Iroquois and all the other people who lived here before us - but reading 600 pages of incredibly well researched details about the ruthlessness with which our first President picked fights and destroyed nations so that he and others could make money off of land speculation. . . this was a rough read. Calloway's main conclusion after a lifetime of research and a professorship at Dartmouth College is that "Washin
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As Calloway ably relates in this extremely detailed work, George Washington had many admirable qualities and talents, and it's likely that we would have lost the Revolutionary War without him. However, he was also a man of his time and social position, which strongly influenced the evolution of his attitudes toward Native Americans. And while not an excuse for his actions, it does help us to understand why he did what he did (and didn't do).
Washington did not see Native American societies as com ...more
Washington did not see Native American societies as com ...more

If you finish reading this book you are definitely tenacious. This book was not a page turner, very monotonous. I had hoped that this book would have some particulars on George Washington and his involvement with American Indians. Some books I’ve read take a few pages to give me the direction to paint the word pictures that the author is trying to stress. This book never gave me that reaction. The author has done a great deal of research however it seemed to me that the author tried to get anoth
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In 2020, when protesters widened their targets of criticism from Confederates to the very founders of the United States, I sought to re-educate myself on early American history through the lenses of Native Americans and slavery. I used the big COVID stay-cation to read and study several top-shelf books, spending a couple MONTHS reading The Indian World of George Washington by Colin Calloway. I could only read about ten pages per day because the information is so dense and thought-provoking. I re
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I liked this, but was left a little confused at the end where the author talks about Washington's attitude toward slavery--I had read elsewhere that Washington was fully committed to the institution, and had relentlessly tried to hunt down Ona Judge, an escapee from Mount Vernon. Here, we read about Washington being "trapped" in a slave-based economic system he privately disliked, wanted ended, but one that he publicly did not challenge. I think I believe the first account more, about him being
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There are two things I find interesting about history: 1-you should be prepared to learn from it, and 2-be prepared for surprises.
Those two statements were certainly evident in this book. Like everyone, I knew many facts, and many nonfacts, about Washington; however, that knowledge was limited to his time in the Revolutionary War and general information about his being our first president, etc. I had no knowledge of the way he handled the Native Americans. Big surprise for me: Washington handled ...more
Those two statements were certainly evident in this book. Like everyone, I knew many facts, and many nonfacts, about Washington; however, that knowledge was limited to his time in the Revolutionary War and general information about his being our first president, etc. I had no knowledge of the way he handled the Native Americans. Big surprise for me: Washington handled ...more

A very detailed and well sourced account of George Washington's interactions with the Native Americans from the French and Indian War to his death in 1799. The book thoroughly addresses the inner conflicts our first president had about treating the Native Americans and the long chain of both intended and unintended consequences. Despite the harm inflicted on generations of Native Americans throughout the time period, at the time of George Washington's death, the Native Americans held him in high
...more

I enjoyed this one more than the other recent book on the same general subject. He seems to take a fairer approach with Washington without overlooking Washington's foibles . . . Washington comes across as pretty land-grubby. . . . It's hard to keep all the "players" straight so I just read for an overall impression, which was pretty much that everything is far more complicated than either "side" makes it out to be. The Indians themselves had so many in-group treaties and betrayals among themselv
...more
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