{"id":48792,"date":"2016-08-23T19:28:49","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T19:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48792"},"modified":"2016-08-24T13:45:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T13:45:47","slug":"nicholas-guyatts-bind-us-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48792","title":{"rendered":"Nicholas Guyatt\u2019s \u2018Bind Us Apart\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicholas Guyatt\u2019s \u2018Bind Us Apart\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Book Reviews<\/a>
\nThe New York Times<\/a>
\n2016-04-29<\/p>\n

Eric Foner<\/strong><\/a>, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History
\nColumbia University, New York, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

BIND US APART<\/strong><\/a>
\n How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation<\/strong><\/a>
\nBy Nicholas Guyatt<\/a>
\nIllustrated. 403 pp. Basic Books. $29.99.<\/p>\n

Half a century ago, inspired by the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Brown v. Board of Education<\/em><\/a>, historians embarked on an effort to identify the origins of racial segregation. C. Vann Woodward<\/a> insisted that rather than existing from time immemorial, as the ruling\u2019s opponents claimed, segregation emerged in the 1890s. Others located its genesis in Reconstruction<\/a> or the pre-Civil War<\/a> North.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the debate faded. Now, Nicholas Guyatt<\/a> offers a new interpretation. Segregation and its ideological justification \u201cseparate but equal<\/a>,\u201d he argues, originated in the early Republic in the efforts of \u201cenlightened Americans\u201d to uplift and protect Indians and African-\u00adAmericans. After trying and abandoning other policies, these reformers and policy makers concluded that only separation from whites \u2014 removal of Indians to the trans-Mississippi<\/a> West<\/a> and blacks to Africa<\/a> \u2014 would enable these groups to enjoy their natural rights and achieve economic and cultural advancement. Thus, almost from the outset, the idea of separating the races was built into the DNA of the United States.<\/p>\n

Guyatt, who teaches at the University of Cambridge, is the author of a well-\u00adregarded book on the history of the idea (still very much alive today) that God has chosen this country for a special mission. In \u201cBind Us Apart<\/a>\u201d he addresses another theme central to our national identity: Who is an American? To find an answer he offers a detailed account of early national policies toward Indians and blacks…<\/p>\n

…One of Guyatt\u2019s surprising findings is how many liberals believed that the Indian population should be assimilated through intermarriage. \u201cYou will mix with us by marriage<\/a>,\u201d [Thomas] Jefferson<\/a> told an Indian delegation in 1808. \u201cWe shall all be Americans.\u201d Not all whites agreed, of course. In the 1820s \u201call hell broke loose\u201d in Cornwall, Conn.<\/a>, when two young Indian men who arrived to study at a religious school ended up marrying local white women…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicholas Guyatt\u2019s \u2018Bind Us Apart\u2019 Book Reviews The New York Times 2016-04-29 Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History Columbia University, New York, New York BIND US APART How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation By Nicholas Guyatt Illustrated. 403 pp. Basic Books. $29.99. Half a century ago, inspired by the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Brown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,459,8,3015,20],"tags":[16174,2640,24831,2327],"class_list":["post-48792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-history","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-usa","tag-eric-foner","tag-new-york-times","tag-nicholas-guyatt","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48792"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48806,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48792\/revisions\/48806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}