Muddy Ground
Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent
By John William Nelson

288 pp., 6.125 x 9.125, 10 halftones, 2 maps
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-7520-6
Published: September 2023 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-7519-0
Published: September 2023
David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History
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Pushing beyond political and cultural explanations for Indigenous-European relations in the borderlands of North America, Nelson places environmental and geographic realities at the center of the history of Indigenous Chicago, offering a new explanation for how the United States gained control of the North American interior through a two-pronged subjugation of both the landscapes and peoples of the continent.
About the Author
John William Nelson is assistant professor of history at Texas Tech University.
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Reviews
"Muddy Ground is a brilliant synthesis of Indigenous and environmental history, illuminating the importance of Chicago as a crossroads linking the Great Lakes and the Great Plains. Nelson provides a compelling narrative showing how first Indigenous people, and subsequently the American settler state, mastered space and mobility in order to make this muddy space a gateway to the west."—Michael J. Witgen, author of Pulitzer Prize–finalist Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America
"This amazing new book reconsiders Chicago as an early American place. Framing Chicago as the continent's most important portage, Nelson recenters early American history around the swamps and wetlands of the future metropolis, exploring important currents in Indigenous history, borderlands history, environmental history, and the history of colonialism."—Robert Morrissey, author of People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America
"This book helps to shift the paradigm in how we understand the long history of Indigenous space, its conquest in the nineteenth century, and the ramifications ever since."—Kathleen DuVal, author of Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution