Empires, Nations, and Families: a New History of the North American West, 1800-1860

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 · 175 ratings  · 24 reviews

Start your review of Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American Westward, 1800-1860

I had to skip through sections of this book. It's very detailed, but also quite dry well-nigh of the time.

The parts I liked the most were the starting time sections that gave a expert overview of how the American fur trade in the West was able to go going, then you get a lot of recaps from the 1700s.

I skipped virtually 100 pages later on that and got up around folio 230 where you go a good look at the early start of St. Louis and Fort Osage and some stuff on the Arikara War.

I didn't terminate the book as I just lo

I had to skip through sections of this volume. It'southward very detailed, but as well quite dry most of the time.

The parts I liked the nearly were the beginning sections that gave a adept overview of how the American fur merchandise in the West was able to get going, so you get a lot of recaps from the 1700s.

I skipped nigh 100 pages after that and got up effectually page 230 where you get a proficient look at the early start of St. Louis and Fort Osage and some stuff on the Arikara State of war.

I didn't finish the book as I only lost involvement in it at that point.

...more than

I'grand loving this book. It's history at its best - very readable, like a novel. I've read a fair corporeality nigh early on European contact with Native Americans on the eastern seaboard, and feel like I understand much more than the true history of that part of our country, notwithstanding I've felt very much undereducated near the situation in the middle west and everything west of the Mississippi. This book is helping to correct that lack. Anne Hyde presents insights into cities and areas every bit diverse every bit Saint Louis, Va I'thousand loving this book. It's history at its best - very readable, like a novel. I've read a off-white corporeality about early European contact with Native Americans on the eastern seaboard, and feel like I understand much more the true history of that part of our country, yet I've felt very much undereducated virtually the situation in the middle west and everything due west of the Mississippi. This volume is helping to correct that lack. Anne Hyde presents insights into cities and areas as diverse equally Saint Louis, Vancouver, Santa Iron and California, and helps me to brand sense of the western expansion in a new mode. Her focus is on the leading men in these areas in the context of their families (mostly mixed 'race'), and in the setting of their 'racially' various communities. She presents the many diplomatic, trade and violent interactions amongst these diverse groups, while tracing the rise and fall of fortunes, technologies, and dynasties at the same time. The true history of the Native peoples of America and the Europeans who did concern with them seems to me to exist relatively unknown, and I notice it very meaningful to learn nearly it. I'1000 learning something new on nearly every page of this book. I got this volume out of the library, merely liked information technology so much I bought information technology. ...more

Mar xix, 2014 Kim Adamache rated it it was amazing

I read this for a history course on the American West. Hyde presents history in a way that is dissimilar from the traditional way of writing history. She opens a globe of personalties and interconnected families and communities that are oft disregarded, barely written or completely recast every bit something quite different than information technology really was.

If you enjoy history, this volume is worth a read whether for a class or just pleasure.

May 18, 2017 George Dziuk rated it actually liked it

Our traditional view on the history of the American west often follows along these lines: the settling of a vast unknown wilderness done at the expense of those who had previously lived in that location. In this stereotypically re-telling, the white human being is seen as assaulter and the native population is portrayed as the abused political party that had admittedly no command over the hand they were dealt.

Dispelling that stereotype is part of what Anne Hyde is trying to achieve here and she largely succeeds. She does

Our traditional view on the history of the American west oft follows along these lines: the settling of a vast unknown wilderness done at the expense of those who had previously lived at that place. In this stereotypically re-telling, the white man is seen equally aggressor and the native population is portrayed equally the abused political party that had absolutely no command over the paw they were dealt.

Dispelling that stereotype is function of what Anne Hyde is trying to accomplish here and she largely succeeds. She does this through focusing on the economical realities of the fur merchandise that dominated the entire region from the time of the Louisiana Purchase through the belatedly 1830s/early 40s. This includes willful participation by a vested group of native nations that benefits significantly from this merchandise. This economic reality leads to anglo traders becoming enmeshed in native culture through marriage as an encroachment to encourage merchandise, but chiefly to make a living. The issue is these edge regions becomes places where nationality matters less than who you know and who you are married to….personal relationships supersede national identity.

To provide context, Hyde focuses on a few key families that developed into successful traders and were central points in the massive trading empire of the American westward. Information technology's a smart decision. It personalizes the story, thus making the narrative more readable, and it helps yous follow forth a fairly long 60 year history across a very wide swath of territory.

Are familiar themes hit upon? Yeah. They have to exist. You can't talk most the history of these native cultures without mentioning the terrible destruction wrought by disease or the dangers that anglo settlers faced as they tried to notice a living in very hostile environments, just what Anne Hyde argues very successfully is that these peoples were largely willful participants…at least until the Mexican-American War and the American occupation of the entire westward completely changed all that. It's only one time we get to the 1850s that we see a return of the native American tribes seen as the abused party, but the blame is place on filibusters and settlers that had a different expectation about the places that they were going to inhabit.

Overall, I recommend this book. It is a solid and engaging read. I enjoyed information technology very much and information technology has made me want to read other books that focus on some of the places highlighted….the history of northern California and the Pacific-Northwest in particular.

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Jan 02, 2014 Deb rated information technology really liked it

Many years ago, I read, adored and recommended over and over a huge tome called Men to Match My Mountains past Irving Stone. Hyde is covering much of the aforementioned territory here, though she starts in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase and covers St. Louis founders, mountain men, and early settlers (not to mention Native Americans who married into settler families) in all parts of the trans-Mississippi Westward. The chapters on the Sublettes, the Bannings, Wilsons and Vallejos were especially interesting to Many years ago, I read, adored and recommended over and over a huge tome called Men to Match My Mountains by Irving Stone. Hyde is covering much of the same territory hither, though she starts in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase and covers St. Louis founders, mount men, and early settlers (not to mention Native Americans who married into settler families) in all parts of the trans-Mississippi Westward. The chapters on the Sublettes, the Bannings, Wilsons and Vallejos were especially interesting to me, but I besides institute the sections on Mormon "handmaidens" and the Pacific Northwest fun. I dipped in every chance I got during the holidays and enjoyed immersing myself in the 1800 to 1860 flow. Hyde writes compelling prose about fascinating people meeting all the challenges of settling a huge swath of American wilderness. ...more

April 17, 2012 Hilary rated information technology it was astonishing

This was just named a Finalist for the Pulitzer prize!

Hyde offers a highly engaging and informative history of the western United States through the first half of the 18th century. The major players comes to life equally Hyde tells the story of how settlement of the due west evolved from familial, interracial and mutually respectful relationship development into national (and racially conflicted) program.

Ane interesting theme I noticed was how racial disharmonize was inflamed by politics, non vice versa. Contrary to the pop myth that racism in the populous

Hyde offers a highly engaging and informative history of the western United States through the get-go half of the 18th century. The major players comes to life as Hyde tells the story of how settlement of the west evolved from familial, interracial and mutually respectful relationship development into national (and racially conflicted) program.

One interesting theme I noticed was how racial disharmonize was inflamed by politics, not vice versa. Contrary to the popular myth that racism in the populous should be controlled past political intervention, Hyde's history shows that people were quite capable of connecting meaningfully across racial lines until conflict escalated to a political level. Political efforts tended (equally they all the same tend) to harden racial tensions rather than assuage them.

In whatsoever instance, this is a fascinating tale, well worth the read for the story also as the history it provides, and well worthy of the Pulitzer Prize nomination it received.

...more

Brain Food: Hearty Salad
Scandal Level: nihl
Violence: meh
Must be ___ onetime to read: 16
Read if you liked: the truth of the wild due west
Re-readability: I will accept to read information technology again
Thoughts: A fascinating volume about life on the frontier afterwards the Louisiana Purchase. I learned a lot near the structure of families and interpersonal relations during the time. An interesting read and fun for a history textbook.

Sep 04, 2021 Angela rated it it was ok

And so repetitive. This book could've been a pamphlet. So repetitive. This volume could've been a pamphlet. ...more

Mar 23, 2013 Brad Hodges rated it really liked it

The subtitle of Empires, Nations, and Families is A History of the North American Westward, 1800-1860. That's a big field of study. And Anne F. Hyde's book is sprawling, covering the W from the Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles to Taos to Texas. Just her focus is on something more domestic than the tales of the West later on the Ceremonious War. Her thesis is that the Due west grew based on the influence of the 3 nouns in her title.

The book, as ane might expect, covers so much ground that information technology's hard to summarize. South

The subtitle of Empires, Nations, and Families is A History of the North American Due west, 1800-1860. That'southward a big subject. And Anne F. Hyde'south volume is sprawling, roofing the West from the Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles to Taos to Texas. But her focus is on something more domestic than the tales of the Due west later on the Civil War. Her thesis is that the Due west grew based on the influence of the iii nouns in her title.

The book, as ane might expect, covers so much ground that it's hard to summarize. She starts with the fur merchandise, which was the single about important article in the early on days afterward Lewis and Clark: "Fur and Indians, which take moved into the realm of quaint now, were at the heart of local, national, and international business between 1800 and 1860. And family unit enterprises operated at the merchandise's core. In a globe of political revolution, nation building, and international rivalry, business and family life thrived in spite of these potentially destabilizing distractions."

Hyde discusses the major players in the fur game, from the Chouteaus and Sublettes of Missouri to John McLoughlin of Fort Vancouver on the Columbia (in what was then Canada). Information technology's interesting to read near what St. Louis was like in 1800. Eighty pct of the people born there had some percentage of Native blood. It was very cosmopolitan, and then much then that Washington Irving, on a visit, was disgusted: "Irving's vision, littered with descriptors like 'squaw,' 'half-breed,' 'negroes,' and 'blacks,' has the feel of earth gone culturally mad, with Indians inside, people and animals sleeping in inappropriate places, a sign of what happens when whites mix."

Indians, of grade, is the other ascendant characteristic of Hyde's book. In 1800 in St. Louis, for the most office Anglo-Americans, the French, and Indians lived in harmony, trading and intermarrying. But things wouldn't final that way. We learn about Comancheria, the near successful Indian nation of the continent, in which Comanches had domain over most of what is today Texas for over a century. Every bit I accept learned in other books, Hyde notes that Comanches were by far the scariest Indians on the plains. We as well larn about the turf war between the Osage and the Cherokee. The latter were removed from their ancestral home into Oklahoma, where the Osage already lived. This was non welcome to the Osage.

There is also a nifty deal well-nigh the Indian wars in the Pacific Northwest, about which I knew aught about except I had heard of the Whitman massacre, in which missionaries trying to catechumen the Klamath Indians were wiped out. In fact, there are a lot of massacres discussed in the book, including the ane in Taos, where one local official was beheaded, the Sand Creek massacre (in 1864, technically exterior of Hyde's parameters) and the Mountain Meadow massacre of 1857, when Mormons slaughtered a party of pioneers on their way to California. Mormons were a big thorn in the U.Due south. government'due south side for ages. Hyde gives u.s. a short just vivid history of them, from Joseph Smith onward.

Also covered is the Mexican War, and before that Stephen F. Austin's founding of Anglo colonies at that place, and the settling of California, which only came to the U.S. after the Mexican War. 1 amusing anecdote is a U.S. naval warship taking Monterrey without a shot, every bit the commander believed that Mexico and the U.Southward. were at state of war. When he was informed otherwise, he apologized and left.

The book is a tad on the bookish side, but Hyde interjects at diverse points, particularly in discussing the violence of the period, and the lack of respect for land buying: "A nation of squatters who used violence to establish rights and to dispossess other people needs to recognize itself in these actions. Anglo-American settlers, however laudable their individual intentions, chose to settle on country owned by others and demanded that the U.S. government use all of its ability to remove them, making these 'ordinary nineteenth-century frontiersman' into killers."

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Jul 27, 2014 Liam rated information technology it was amazing

"The world of river and maritime trade effectively decentered traditional political power, locating knowledge outside of traditional military and diplomatic circles and firmly int the easily of local people, both Native and newer residents." (five-6)

"We think of the barons of the fur trade as the nineteenth-century equivalents of modern corporate raiders -- steely-eyed individuals, unfettered by personal ties, who cornered markets and lusted after conquest. This is an inaccurate view of a setting in

"The world of river and maritime trade effectively decentered traditional political power, locating knowledge outside of traditional armed services and diplomatic circles and firmly int the hands of local people, both Native and newer residents." (5-6)

"Nosotros think of the barons of the fur trade as the nineteenth-century equivalents of modern corporate raiders -- steely-eyed individuals, unfettered by personal ties, who cornered markets and lusted after conquest. This is an inaccurate view of a setting in which no one could operate lonely. ... [T]he people in this earth needed relationships -- marriage, adoption, chains, partnership, apprenticeship, and friendship -- to make business organization and life possible in the face up of imperial rivalry and warfare." (97)

"Native nations, which had been essential assets to trade, became unsafe impediments to land conquering and settlement. Building relationships with Native people, so crucial to the world of trade, became anathema in the last office of the nineteenth century." (225-6)

"Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, Anglo-Americans saw race as a very malleable characteristic, much as Native Americans did, though their ideas had a powerful progressive bent. In the menstruum when race was flexible, Indian people especially could somehow exist improved. They could go more than noble and less savage by contact with civilization. Withal, as race became a 'problem' and categories sharpened and hardened, nonwhite people became innately inferior and progression incommunicable." (275)

"The Indians that [anthropologist Lewis Henry] Morgan admired for wearing ties and running stores had only made themselves targets by succeeding..." (483-4)

...more

December 07, 2012 Robin rated it really liked information technology

Wait is very well researched and quite interesting. It gives skillful insights into life on the planes in the west post 1800 This book is a magnificent piece of scholarship and well deserving the Bancroft Prize. Dr. Hyde presents a reality of races merging, clashing, and separating in the West. She follows the Fur Merchandise and its role in dominating much of the early part of the 19th century in the West. Across that, she examines how the West was settled and torn asunder. The books is most families, t Look is very well researched and quite interesting. Information technology gives good insights into life on the planes in the west post 1800 This book is a magnificent piece of scholarship and well deserving the Bancroft Prize. Dr. Hyde presents a reality of races merging, clashing, and separating in the West. She follows the Fur Trade and its role in dominating much of the early role of the 19th century in the Westward. Across that, she examines how the West was settled and torn disconnected. The books is near families, traditions, cultures, and economic and social evolution.

While the book is non "exciting," I think I have finally learned and understood more than fully "How the Due west was Won" It is not a pretty picture.

...more

A massive New Western History that shows the telescopic, complication, messiness, bloodiness and contingency of the Northward American W in the menstruation. Rather than indulge the plainly out-of-appointment epitome of white settlers moving west into vacant land, or just writing nearly the westward expansion of anglo-Americans as a tragic loss for native tribes (which information technology of course was), Hyde focuses on the kinship and trade networks, and imperialism and land-grabbing from Russian federation, Spain, Mexico, the Us, France, Engla A massive New Western History that shows the scope, complexity, messiness, bloodiness and contingency of the N American Westward in the period. Rather than indulge the obviously out-of-date epitome of white settlers moving westward into vacant land, or just writing about the westward expansion of anglo-Americans as a tragic loss for native tribes (which it of form was), Hyde focuses on the kinship and trade networks, and imperialism and state-grabbing from Russia, Spain, Mexico, the US, France, England, Texas, Indian Tribes (particularly the Comanche), Mormons...and more than, with an emphasis on the choices fabricated by these unlike groups as the navigated the fur merchandise, discovery, competing interests, family, and empire. ...more than

Fantastic! In another Universe, I may have turned out a historian, and in another Universe, there is a version of American history that builds on Hyde's vision of the American West as a place where cultures and nations mingled and mixed instead of being wiped out by a single, ascendant political and economic force. This narrative begins with the Louisiana Purchase (with some consideration of what came before) and ends with the start of the Ceremonious War, telling the story not just of nations and cult Fantastic! In another Universe, I may have turned out a historian, and in another Universe, in that location is a version of American history that builds on Hyde'south vision of the American West as a place where cultures and nations mingled and mixed instead of being wiped out by a unmarried, dominant political and economic force. This narrative begins with the Louisiana Buy (with some consideration of what came earlier) and ends with the start of the Civil State of war, telling the story not just of nations and cultures only of the individuals and families of the Trans-Mississippi Due west, the Oregon Country, and Texas and New Mexico. Amazing read! ...more

October xviii, 2013 Katie Wilson rated it information technology was amazing

In Empires Nations and Families, Anne Hyde undergoes an incredibly ambitious projection; providing a history of the American West from 1800-1860. She does so in an ingenious way, using an original interpretive framework to cope with a large book of material. By looking at individual family units and tracing their connections over different spaces and at unlike times, Hyde provides an engaging and interesting expect at the history of the American West.

Read Full Review: https://mybookbagblog.word

In Empires Nations and Families, Anne Hyde undergoes an incredibly aggressive projection; providing a history of the American West from 1800-1860. She does and so in an ingenious style, using an original interpretive framework to cope with a big volume of material. By looking at individual family units and tracing their connections over different spaces and at unlike times, Hyde provides an engaging and interesting expect at the history of the American West.

Read Total Review: https://mybookbagblog.wordpress.com/2...

...more

Nov 25, 2016 char rated it really liked it

Multiethnic families and webs of relationships is such a fascinating mode to look at the American West, and Hyde'southward use of storytelling actually fabricated it come up alive. Readable and frank, though honestly it could have been a picayune bit shorter, haha. I really enjoyed this, and promise to return to information technology when I can devote a little more time to reading information technology thoroughly! Multiethnic families and webs of relationships is such a fascinating fashion to look at the American Due west, and Hyde's use of storytelling really made it come alive. Readable and frank, though honestly information technology could have been a footling bit shorter, haha. I really enjoyed this, and hope to return to information technology when I can devote a little more time to reading it thoroughly! ...more

There's a lot of interesting work here regarding the overlapping imperial claims to the trans-Mississippi W and the ways in which people lived nether and outside of these official political categories, specially within interracial communities (whose identities are upended by the connected westward push of the American state), but it ultimately spreads pretty thin At that place'south a lot of interesting work here regarding the overlapping imperial claims to the trans-Mississippi West and the ways in which people lived under and outside of these official political categories, particularly within interracial communities (whose identities are upended by the connected westward push of the American state), but information technology ultimately spreads pretty sparse ...more than

Mar 16, 2014 Josh Reid rated it really liked it

Masterful in its scope. Families & networks = useful lens of analysis. Sometimes got a footling lost among the myriad historical actors, just this due more than to me reading it over a long period of time than her writing.

A tremendous historical account of the American West and the development of the various nations and empires that aided in the shaping of the West. This is elevation notch history that is both scholarly and accessible to the amateur historian.

Very well written and interesting perspective about how these family empires controlled parts of the West only on very shaky ground.

Skillful information just also thick.

Mar 02, 2014 Mary rated it actually liked it

Some interesting early western American history told by following the families that built early trading empires and their relationships with the native Americans.

Oct 07, 2019 Dutchermann rated it it was amazing

Although information technology is lengthy, students in my History of the American West course enjoy this book and the way it complicates their understanding of westward expansion.

This was non the volume I thought it would be.

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