Red Dreams, White Nightmares: Pan-Indian Alliances in the Anglo-American Mind, 1763–1815 by Robert M. Owens (review)

Abstract

WINTER 2016 73 blow-by-blow timeline, Calloway illustrates how ill-prepared the army was for the St. Clair campaign. He follows this section with an important analysis of intertribal resistance and its role in the Great Lakes. As the final two chapters discuss the event itself and its aftermath, one can clearly see seeds of memory-making and the role of narrative in the emerging American nation. As a brief piece, there are moments when one might like to see more detail, however, as an introductory volume this work would be well suited to the classroom. Of particular value is how Calloway deftly navigates the political intrigues of the era, the difficulties of managing an expansive settler populace and the ways the Americans sought to legitimize their hold on the west. While the event was both a defeat and an emerging crisis, Calloway makes clear the path ahead for the Americans through the success of Anthony Wayne, the Jay and Pickney treaties, and continued dispossession of indigenous land. Kristalyn Shefveland University of Southern Indiana