
The Best Land
Four Hundred Years of Love and Betrayal on Oneida Territory
- 384 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
In Susan A. Brewer's fascinating The Best Land, she recounts the story of the parcel of central New York land on which she grew up. Brewer and her family had worked and lived on this land for generations when the Oneida Indians claimed that it rightfully belonged to them. Why, she wondered, did she not know what had happened to this place her grandfather called the best land. Here, she tells its story, tracing over the past four hundred years the two families—her own European settler family and the Oneida/Mohawk family of Polly Denny—who called the best land home.
Situated on the passageway to the west, the ancestral land of the Oneidas was coveted by European colonizers and the founders of the Empire State. The Brewer and Denny families took part in imperial wars, the American Revolution, broken treaties, the building of the Erie Canal, Native removal, the rise and decline of family farms, bitter land claims controversies, and the revival of the Oneida Indian Nation. As Brewer makes clear in The Best Land, through centuries of violence, bravery, greed, generosity, racism, and love, the lives of the Brewer and Denny families were profoundly intertwined. The story of this homeland, she discovers, unsettles the history she thought she knew.
With clear determination to tell history as it was, without sugarcoating or ignoring the pain and suffering of both families, Brewer navigates the interconnected stories with grace, humility, and a deep love for the land. The Best Land is a beautiful homage to the people, the place, and the environment itself.
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Information
Table of contents
- Preface
- Note to Readers
- My Family
- Family of Polly Denny and Jacob Doxtator
- 1. The People of the Standing Stone and the Axe Makers
- 2. Of One and Many People in the Mohawk Valley
- 3. For King or Country
- 4. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow
- 5. “We Shall All Be Americans”: The Story of Polly and Angel
- 6. Making Way for the Erie Canal
- 7. Squatters, Tenants, Owners
- 8. Realms of Orchards
- 9. Fire and Water
- 10. Ancestral Claims
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliographic Essay
- Index