Andrew Offenburger— In 1883, an academic and traveler named William Henry Bishop posed a question on many Americans’ minds. “What is a world to do,” he asked, “when it has no longer a West?” Bishop wondered how the United States would continue to expand beyond California, following a pattern of
Journalist Paul VanDevelder, author of Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire through Indian Territory, considers the development of American history from the perspectives of the Founders and what a narrow consideration of the nation’s expansion might mean for how we as Americans—indeed, all types—reflect on
The 1831 removal of five Indian tribes from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory near present-day Oklahoma is known to us as The Trail of Tears. In Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire Through Indian Territory,Paul VanDevelder follows the stories from this trail, the