Dispossessing the wilderness: Indian removal and the making of the national parks

Abstract

"Mark David Spence examines the complex origins of the national parks and the troubling consequences of the American wilderness ideal. He explores the idealization of uninhabited wilderness in the late nineteenth century and the policies of Indian removal developed at Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier national parks between the 1870s and the 1930s. Concerned with the historical and cultural importance of national park areas to the peoples who previously inhabited them, Spence also analyzes the efforts of various American Indian tribes to maintain a connection to these places after their dispossession. The first study to place national park history within the context of the early reservation era, this book details the ways in which national parks have developed into one of the most important arenas of contention between native peoples and non-Indians in the twentieth century." "Spence's rich study will interest scholars and students of environmental history, Western history, American studies, and American Indian studies, as well as native scholars, environmentalists, and members of the National Park Service."--Jacket.

Contents

From common ground -- Looking backward and westward: the "Indian wilderness" in the antebellum era -- The wild West, or toward separate islands -- Before the wilderness: native peoples and Yellowstone -- First wilderness: America's wonderland and Indian removal from Yellowstone National Park -- Backbone of the world: the Blackfeet and the Glacier National Park area -- Crowning the continent: the American wilderness ideal and Blackfeet exclusion from Glacier National Park -- The heart of the Sierras, 1864-1916 -- Yosemite Indians and the National Park ideal, 1916-1969 -- Exceptions and the rule.