Living In The Land Of Death Analysis

Donna Akers is an assistant professor of history at Purdue University and a tribal member of the Choctaw Nation. He wrote a book named “Living in the land of Death”, in which he documented his beliefs and history of those living in North America and South East. He Explained throughout the whole book how the Indian Removal affected the people living in Choctaw Nation and how the President Andrew Jackson and the Congress always tried to trick most of those who were in charge of their safety.
Akers majors argument was that most of the modern historians would have wished to never have known about the phrase known as the Indian removal. Since he believed “it was one of the most disgraceful events in U.S. History”. Actually, the purpose for him naming his book the land of death, was because “ no matter how hard they tried to build up a new life, it was impossible”. Since almost anything the Choctaw Nation did was unacceptable because of the treaty.
One of the Choctaws defenders had died because of smallpox while trying to recover money back from the congress. Although it was never recovered because congress had thrown away their money, which is one of the convincing arguments Akers had about congress tricking the Choctaw people. Another way of

convincing people was how the treaty, that opposed almost everything, was The Treaty of Doak's Stand, which forced the nation to walk out of their homelands, for they had sold one-half of their remaining land. However, the government did “claim jurisdiction over all crimes that involved a white person, no matter whether they occurred on U.S or Choctaw soil”. Which made most of the people from Choctaw nervous, for they knew that sooner or later the “white people” would do anything “ until all the Indian lands were in the hands of the whites”. Most people from Choctaw did not even bother going through any type of trouble for they knew that the whites would win, also because the court was so far away from their homelands. Which proves people that once again Akers had a point on why they did not even bother on building a new life.
The best thing about this book is that it is very well written and easy to understand, anyone from the 8th grade and up can read it without any trouble.

Most of the history is based on people living during that time and that current area, which makes it very easy for people to learn about how Akers and Choctaw felt about the Indian Removal and why Akers believed the president and congress were to be blamed for. Also, Akers can almost convince anyone that the treaty was so manipulative by showing how congress was very harsh with the Choctaw nation, although Akers did not do so well on explaining why modern historians would have wished on never hearing the Indian Removal, other than explaining how bad the nation was

treated.