The present volume deals with a phase, as the author says, “of American Civil War history, which has heretofore been almost neglected, or where dealt with, either misunderstood or misinterpreted.”  It comes as a surprise to most of us that the Indian played a part of sufficient importance within the Union to have the right to have something to say about secession.  Yet inconsistently enough he was considered so much a foreigner that both the South and the North, particularly the former, found it expedient to employ diplomacy in approaching him.

The South, we are assured, found the attitude of the Indians toward secession of the greatest importance.  Yet it was not the Indian owner so much as the Indian country that the Confederacy wanted to be sure of possessing, for Indian Territory occupied a position of strategic importance from both the economic and the military point of view.  “The possession of it was absolutely necessary for the political and institutional consolidation of the South.  Texas might well think of going her own way and of forming an independent republic once again, when between her and Arkansas lay the immense reservations of the great tribes.  They were slave-holding tribes, too; yet were supposed by the United States government to have no interest whatsoever in a sectional conflict that involved the very existence of the ‘peculiar institution,’”

The above quotation is practically the intent of the book and the author has succeeded in carrying this out in four divisions entitled:  I, “The General Situation in the Indian Country, 1830-1860.”  II, “Indian Territory in Its Relations with Texas and Arkansas.”  III, “The Confederacy in Negotiation with the Indian Tribes.”  IV, “The Indian Nations in Alliance with the Confederacy.”

The book is essentially a work by a scholar for scholars.  It is certainly not for the laity.  The facts are striking but well substantiated.  There can be no doubt but that much time has been spent in its compilation.  The style, however, is unusually dry.  It has appendices, an invaluable bibliography, a carefully tabulated index, four maps, and three portraits of Indian leaders.

It is interesting to note that the author is of British birth and ancestry and so presumably is free from sectional prejudice.  Her book marks a distinct step forward, for those who are interested in Indian affairs.

JESSIE FAUSET.

The Political History of Slavery in the United States. By James Z. George, formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi and later United States Senator from that State.  The Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1915.  Pp. xix, 342.

This is a discussion as well as the history of slavery and Reconstruction from the time of the introduction of the slaves in 1619 to the break-up of the carpet-bagger governments.  “Considering the jealousies and even animosities that are becoming more and more intensified between the North and South, as well as the disposition that is ever increasing in the stronger section to dominate the weaker,” the author believes that “it is becoming necessary to think over calmly and seriously the causes that have produced these evils, and to ascertain, if we can, the remedy, if remedy there be.”