Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen John P. Bowes Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America By Michael John Witgen (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Pp. vii, 366. Notes, illustrations, appendix, index. $34.95.) In the early pages of Seeing Red, Michael Witgen explains that citizens of the United States have long imagined their nation as a postcolonial state, a new entity born out of an anti-colonial revolution. This conception enabled them to envision their new republic as one untroubled by the trappings of colonialism and empire. As he notes, however, this constructed image of a postcolonial state belies a powerful truth. Indeed, when framed within the Indigenous history of the Old Northwest territories, the framework of Native American policies implemented in the early American republic illustrates the power and reach of a colonial power built on what Witgen dubs the "political economy of plunder," comprised of treaties, land cessions, and annuities (p. 19). In the seven primary chapters that follow, Witgen uses the Anishinaabeg experience in Michigan and Wisconsin as a lens to scrutinize the impact of this plunder, from the early 1800s through the 1850s. The conclusion he reaches is clear: the United States was, and continues to be, a colonial power built on the economic exploitation of Indigenous people. Over the course of the book, Witgen examines an important paradox. Americans viewed the disappearance of Native peoples as inevitable, yet Indigenous imagery became central to the burgeoning American identity fashioned in public spaces. Just as important, the ongoing presence of Native communities in Michigan Territory, and other sites of western expansion, was central to the economy of the colonial society. As Witgen describes it, treaties like those signed in 1817, at the foot of the rapids of the St. Mary's River, or at Saginaw in 1819, created economic relationships that colonized the region and its peoples. Treaties did not just fuel real estate booms through land cessions. These agreements established annuity payments and the promise of goods that sparked regional economies, as merchants profited by selling supplies to Native individuals and communities. When the tides of dispossession and expulsion began to wane, therefore, white settlers still found financial benefit in the Native peoples who remained in the region and in the resources they retained. People and relationships were central to the implementation of these policies, and Seeing Red effectively explores the connections and relative influence of the mixed-descent population that originated from the fur trade that had long permeated the region. More than just interpreters or coureurs de bois, mixed-descent men [End Page 97] and women were economic, diplomatic, and social sinews, whose influence made it necessary for government officials to engage carefully in matters of race and identity. While the United States wanted to replace Native people with white settlers, Native communities used treaties to remain in Michigan; and as a result, the mixed-descent population factored into regional politics and economics. As American expansion advanced in time and place, the status of mixed descent men and women "vacillated between citizens and racialized colonial subjects" (p. 320). This vacillation meant that they could be the victim or the beneficiary of the plunder, a difference that could depend on choice or circumstance. Towards the end of the concluding chapter, Witgen writes, "Native peoples as well as Native land had become a source of wealth creation for American settlers" (p. 336). That phrase underscores the core argument of Seeing Red. Witgen has written an excellent book that weaves together the formation of an American identity built on Native imagery, the ongoing belief in Native disappearance, the consistent push for Native dispossession and removal, and the pervasive assertions of racial superiority and difference. Yet, it is his explanation of plunder that proves most powerful, and is why Seeing Red is a must read for those seeking to understand more fully the nature of this American nation and the ongoing power of its colonial enterprise. John P. Bowes Eastern Kentucky University Copyright © 2023 Trustees of Indiana University