Great Crossings

Starred review from December 5, 2016
Snyder (Slavery in Indian Country), associate professor of history at Indiana University, opens the door on a fascinating, yet largely unknown episode in American history as she renders in fine detail the early 19th-century experimental interracial community in central Kentucky called Great Crossings, home to Choctaw Academy. The school, opened in the 1820s and shuttered in 1848, was molded by Richard Mentor Johnson, a former Indian fighter, prominent Kentucky politician, and vice president under Martin van Buren. Johnson and his enslaved African-American concubine, Julia Chinn, envisioned an “empire of liberty” that would link westward expansion with emancipation by sending freed slaves west to settle land there. Political motives blended with personal and religious ones. Chinn had been affected by the Second Great Awakening’s emphasis on progress, and both she and Johnson wanted a nurturing place to raise and educate their two daughters. The sections on Johnson and Chinn’s family life are particularly intriguing. Great Crossings became a truly multiracial community once the Choctaw Academy opened, attracting young Native American men determined to receive an academically rigorous education. There they interacted with white instructors and community leaders as well as enslaved African-Americans, resulting in both trouble and romance. This is a well-researched, engagingly written, and remarkable work of scholarship. Illus.

December 1, 2016

Great Crossings, KY, was the home of the Choctaw Academy from 1825 to 1848. Although governed by the U.S. War Department, the institution was a collaboration between the federal government and the Choctaw Nation to educate future Native leaders in hopes that they would lead the "civilizing" of their peoples. Richard Mentor Johnson, academy founder and eventual vice president to Martin Van Buren, endeavored to build a community established on mutual respect between races and peoples. Snyder (history, Indiana Univ.; Slavery in Indian Country) explains why Johnson's vision failed to materialize. President Andrew Jackson imposed a racially intolerant and violent regime, and like-minded followers who displaced Native Americans from most of the continent and utilized slavery to grow economically. Their methodology allowed the United States to span the continent by the end of the 19th century. VERDICT This monograph is highly recommended for readers interested in Jacksonian America or Native American studies. It should be read alongside John Demos's The Heathen School: The Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic.--John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

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