• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2018 March #1
  As a young man, George Washington regularly interacted with Indians, both on individual and tribal levels. As his military and political career blossomed, those relationships continued and intensified. Historian Calloway illustrates how those relationships, both in war and peace, played a critical role in the foundation and early development of the American republic. Before his public career, Washington surveyed, bought, and speculated on Indian lands along the foothills of the Appalachians, fully aware that their ancestral claims would eventually be sacrificed to whites who had formal title. During the French and Indian War and the War of Independence, Washington fought and formed alliances with Indians. As president, he again fought them but accepted their status as internal "sovereign nations" and generally treated Indian leaders with the respect due to foreign dignitaries. Yet he never wavered from his policy to expand the areas of white settlement, viewing Indians and their land claims as obstacles to be overcome. Calloway has written an important and original interpretation of critical years in the formation of federal policies toward the claims and rights of Native Americans. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

Colin G. Calloway is John Kimball Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. His previous books include A Scratch of the Pen and The Victory with No Name.