Indian Affairs and the Administrative State in the Nineteenth Century

Description

The framers of the Constitution and the generations that followed built a powerful and intrusive national administrative state in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The romantic myth of an individualized, pioneering expansion across an open West obscures nationally coordinated administrative and regulatory activity in Indian affairs, land policy, trade policy, infrastructure development, and a host of other issue areas related to expansion. Stephen J. Rockwell offers a careful look at the administration of Indian affairs and its relation to other national policies managing and shaping national expansion westward. Throughout the nineteenth century, Indian affairs were at the center of concerns about national politics, the national economy, and national social issues. Rockwell describes how a vibrant and complicated national administrative state operated from the earliest days of the republic, long before the Progressive era and the New Deal.

Stephen J. Rockwell is an Associate Professor of Political Science at St Joseph's College in Patchogue, New York. He taught in the Political Science and Public Administration programs at the University of Michigan-Flint and worked as a Senior Research Analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He is the co-author (with Peter Woll) of American Government: Competition and Compromise (2001) and co-editor (with Peter Woll) of an anthology entitled American Political Ideals and Realities (2000).

"In this highly effective and masterfully researched volume, Rockwell examines the relationship between US federal administrations of Indian affairs and general US policy making. Highly recommended." -Choice