The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change Among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos

Title

The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change Among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos

Creator

Richard White See all items with this value

Date

1988

Bibliographic Citation

White, Richard. 1988. The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change Among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

annotates

First published in 1983, Richard White’s book is a comparative study of the effects of colonialism and the market economy on three Native American tribes, the Choctaw, Pawnee, and Navajo. Using a world-systems framework, White argues that the emerging market economy and liquor destabilized Choctaw society leading to a greater dependence on European goods and led to ecological collapse due to overreliance on the deerskin trade, leaving the nation destitute before removal in 1830. The first two chapters cover the Choctaw’s traditional pre-contact subsistence practices, including hunting, agriculture, gendered divisions of labor, and land management. The next three chapters cover Choctaw history from the eighteenth to early nineteenth century, including the Choctaw’s loss of diplomatic leverage after the Seven Years’ War and how the introduction of manufactured goods and liquor by Euro-American traders created new stratifications within Choctaw society. White’s use of contemporary European accounts, archaeological studies, and ecological data to show the evolution of Choctaw subsistence practices and social organization is particularly notable. Though he mainly references archaeological work done in Mississippi villages, White discusses the Choctaw’s periodic habitation of the Tombigbee valley in Alabama and later resettlement of the area in the early 19th century in chapters 1 and 5. There is also some discussion of Choctaw funerary practices in chapters 3 and 5. White’s focus is primarily economic and social, largely ignoring cultural change. Subsequent historians have disputed some of White’s conclusions about the extent of Choctaw economic dependency and agency in their participation in the market economy, but this book is still notable for its detailed analysis of Choctaw subsistence practices and ecological history.

Subject

Chahta (Choctaw) See all items with this value

Pawnee See all items with this value

Navajo See all items with this value

Chahta Culture See all items with this value

Hunting See all items with this value

Commerce See all items with this value

Relations See all items with this value

Alabama See all items with this value

Mississippi See all items with this value

Temporal Coverage

Precontact See all items with this value

Postcontact See all items with this value

17th Century See all items with this value

18th Century See all items with this value

19th Century See all items with this value