Treatment of Indigenous peoples -- North America, Indigenous peoples -- North America -- Government relations, Indigenous peoples -- Land tenure -- North America, Treatment of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous peoples -- Government relations, Indigenous peoples -- Land tenure 

"Separation, assimilation, termination, extermination . . . these have been some of the catchwords used to describe white policies toward the American Indian. Behind the postures which have accompanied these attitudes, writes J. E. Chamberlain, there is a surprising consistency, which spans several centuries, in both Canada and the United States.

Relations, as he shows in this book, have shifted uneasily between various extremes. Although the fundamental characteristic of the situation has always been the fact that almost everything that mattered to either race was incomprehensible to the other, it is also true that the central focus of mutual uneasiness has always been land — land, which in more ways than one, was "discovered" (or invented) by the white man. It has functioned as a commodity, a political instrument, a national prerogative; the natives have been confined to it, defined by it, and measured by their use of it.

Finally, it has become a symbol of all that has been lost by all of us, of a time and a place of innocence to which we can never return.

Carefully researched, clearly and forcefully written, The Harrowing of Eden is one of the most sympathetic and cogently written accounts ever published of the all-too-long and agonizing history of white-Indian relations in North America."--Book jacket. 

248 pages ; 22 cm.