The Earth Shall Weep Summary

Ailsa Lewis

Gidick

APUSH- 8

8 January 2018

The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America Book Review

Wilson James. The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America. New York: Grove Press. 1998. James Wilson, the author of The Earth Shall Weep, takes the stance and stresses the fact that Americans should try to understand the true history of American Indians from their historical and relevant perspective. Wilson, born 1948, was raised in England where he attended multiple advanced schools, where he took an interest in history. While attending Oxford, he became interested in history and fully submerged himself in Native American culture and history. American Indians have a strong grasp on American history from the start. While the

Wilson uses the location of those American Indians to organize his book into chapters. He divided each region of the United states to become a useful resource to organize the events that took place to those Indians. The Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, the Far West and the Great Plains were all incorporated into his book as the chapters. The tribes located in these regions are vast but Wilson included a map summarizing the major tribes in their general locations. He also includes multiple chapters in the midst of those giving more background information and a deeper understanding of the destruction brought by Europeans. Generally, there is a repetition among all of the regions that have descriptions of each of the tragedies that took place to those Indians. The Northeast, separated into part one and two, covered the disappearance of east coast tribes and their deep rooted ties into the Northeast Woodland area. He uses tribes like the Algonquian and gives examples of their lives and how european trade and need for material items affected them. Part two of the Northeast covers the death and destruction those europeans caused with diseases, where 90% of the population died in some instances. Pure greed over their land, with the terrible massacres that happened to the tribes was also covered and how they wore down the Indian’s to not fight. The Southeast covers generally the same tragic situations that took place with the tribes in that region. It also covers the distinction of the farming techniques they acquired along with trading techniques and their cultural relationships among other natives and Europeans. The Southwest covers archeological questions and the deep history with many tribes including the Apacheans who migrated southwards from Canada and Alaska. He covers history of the pueblos as and their cultural