In an essay for History News Network, historian Matthew Dennis weighs in on the controversial mail-order tobacco business run by the Seneca Nation of Indians of western New York.
“Indians are on
the warpath, and they’re trying to scalp your children! At least,
that’s what the New York Times
reported, more or less, in its understated-sensationalist style, more
highbrow than the National Inquirer but not much less lurid. . . . Instead, we need to peer more deeply through the
smoke to see matters in historical perspective,” writes Dennis.
Dennis is the author of Seneca Possessed:
Indians, Witchcraft, and Power in the Early
American Republic.Read his post in its entirety at HNN.us.