The Settlers' Empire

Colonialism and State Formation in America's Old Northwest (Early American Studies)

By: Bethel Saler

Narrated by: Robert V Gallant

The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which officially recognized the United States as a sovereign republic, also doubled the territorial girth of the original 13 colonies. The fledgling nation now stretched from the coast of Maine to the Mississippi River and up to the Great Lakes. With this dramatic expansion, argues author Bethel Saler, the United States simultaneously became a postcolonial republic and gained a domestic empire. The competing demands of governing an empire and a republic inevitably collided in the early American West. The Settlers' Empire traces the first federal endeavor to build states wholesale out of the Northwest Territory, a process that relied on overlapping colonial rule over Euro-American settlers and the multiple Indian nations in the territory.

In the Northwest Territory, diverse populations of newcomers and natives struggled over the region's geographical and cultural definition in areas such as religion, marriage, family, gender roles, and economy. The success or failure of state formation in the territory thus ultimately depended on what took place not only in the halls of government but also on the ground and in the everyday lives of the region's Indians, Francophone creoles, Euro- and African Americans, and European immigrants.

Winner of the 2015 W. Turrentine-Jackson Award from the Western History Association. The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press.

©2015 University of Pennsylvania Press (P)2017 Redwood Audiobooks

great book

this is a great historical book. learned a lot. i definitely recommend if you're interested in original peoples

Dense, but important. narrator not my favorite

I had to speed up the narration to 1.10 because the man was just plodding along. I think this work could use a much better reader. As a work, this book adds a lot to the table with regard to settler colonialism and manifest destiny. The Old Northwest is not so trodden a topic, and the author brings in it's importance to the table.

Great narration! Book informative.

The book was very informative, however, I would have done better with a print version to keep up with it all. The narrator was excellent, especially with the French terminology.