Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America

Michael John Witgen

Nov 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Kaipo Schwab

About this audiobook

Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining thousands of acres of their homeland in what is now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the Old Northwest. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates, the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. Deeply researched and passionately written, Seeing Red will command attention from listeners who are invested in the enduring issues of equality, equity, and national belonging at its core.

About the author

Michael John Witgen (Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe) is professor in the Department of History and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University.

Kaipo Schwab is an actor, director, and producer who has worked at the Roundabout, the Public Theater, Second Stage, Hartford Stage, and Cincinnati Playhouse. Kaipo's film and television credits include Anesthesia, The Royal Tenenbaums, Law & Order, Rescue Me, and Orange Is the New Black. He lives in New York City.