Traitor: The Life and Assassination of John Dunn Hunter, American Radical

This illuminating account from University of Kentucky American studies professor Doolen (Territories of Empire) resurfaces a little-remembered figure in U.S. history: John Dunn Hunter, a 19th-century advocate for Native American rights. Hunter’s rise, Doolen asserts, signaled the possibility of cultural integration between Native and white peoples, and his public downfall put paid to that harmonious possibility and portended the coming of Indian removal. Born in 1796 into a white family before being abducted by Kickapoos as a child, Hunter later found stability living with the Kansa and Osage. As a young man, he published a memoir that advocated for the mixing of the “noblest” virtues of Native and white America. It shot him to stardom, putting him at odds with both tribal authorities, who didn’t appreciate his involvement, and War Department officials, who felt he was a threat. The War Department accused Hunter of being a fraud—a likely unfounded accusation, the author maintains—which paved the way for his 1827 assassination in the midst of Texas’s Fredonian rebellion, where Hunter, who had been trying to negotiate between the rebels and the Cherokee, was betrayed by both sides. Throughout, Doolen highlights how prescient Dunn’s views were regarding the potential for a multicultural America. It’s a revelatory up-close look at moment when the U.S. could have taken a different path and the man who could have led it there. (Dec.)