Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson by Christina Snyder (review)

Some five hundred miles from the heart of the Choctaw Nation sat Great Crossings, in Scott County, Kentucky. This extraordinary antebellum experiment in indigenous education was the first national Indian boarding school operated by the United States government. When it opened in 1825, Richard Mentor Johnson, who eventually became vice president of the United States, oversaw this ambitious educational endeavor. When it closed in 1848, Johnson's political career lay in tatters, and his reputation among the Choctaws was severely tarnished.

The story of Great Crossings is a tale of a small place in Kentucky with some profound historical implications. Historian Christina Snyder brings this story to life by using this federally funded educational institution to connect readers to fresh perspectives on Choctaw history and the histories of the Native South, slavery, and the social and political changes that altered life in antebellum America.

Snyder's analysis is grounded in solid archival research. An insightful introduction and conclusion bookend twelve well-conceived chapters. In chapter 1 Snyder introduces readers to early-nineteenth-century Choctaws and the prominent Choctaw families who craved educational opportunities for their children. In the 1820s the Choctaws were already feeling the pressure of removal politics. The world that the previous generation of Choctaws defined as traditional was fading, and young men sought different paths to manhood and new skills to fight for their sovereignty. For the Pitchlynn family, that path involved a formal education. The most impressive and ultimately most famous member of the family was Peter Perkins Pitchlynn, or Hatchoctucknee.

For Peter Pitchlynn, Great Crossings proved to be an attractive alternative to the mission schools that dotted the Native South. As we learn in chapter 2, Pitchlynn met Richard Mentor Johnson at Great Crossings. Johnson and his mixed-race "'wife,'" Julia Chinn, oversaw the daily operations at Great Crossings (p. 3). Their work included navigating the racial tensions between Native Americans and African Americans at Great Crossings, which Chinn did with considerable skill.

Great Crossings was indeed a diverse place. In chapter 3 Snyder provides insights into the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Potawatomi, Creek, and Cherokee students, as well as students from other Native communities, who attended the school. From this chapter readers get a sense of daily life among the students, the school's curriculum, and the pressures that were placed on the institution as the student population grew. Chapters 3 and 4 also provide glimpses of how students were taught to think about American history.

As the school grew and students like Peter Pitchlynn excelled in their studies, racial tension persisted. In chapter 4 Snyder observes that disputes arose over issues as seemingly minor as the meals served at Great Crossings and the sense of social status that students projected on campus. Johnson, for example, felt that some Native students acted as if they were above their station. Chapter 5 provides a clear outline of how the racial science of phrenology emerged and helped sharpen discriminatory perceptions of indigenous people. The hardening of antebellum racial logic, Snyder explains, provided the intellectual foundation for removal and prompted an exasperated John Pitchlynn to refer to white Mississippians as "'the damnedest people in the world'" (p. 143).

Chapters 6 and 7 address Choctaw removal in the early 1830s. In these chapters Snyder's analysis loses its focus on Great Crossings and reads like a fairly traditional narrative about Indian removal. Still, we continue to learn about the Choctaw students. As chapters 8 and 9 reveal, a number of these students, including Peter Pitchlynn and Adam Nail, became accomplished professionals, political leaders, and key figures in exposing the failings at Great Crossings during the late 1830s. While Johnson fought to maintain federal funding for Great Crossings, his support among both the Choctaws and the U.S. government dried up. As Snyder details in chapters 10–12, a new era in Choctaw education was about to open...