Awards

• Winner of Winner, CHA Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize, Canadian Historical Association Winner, Best Book in Political History Prize, Canadian Historical Association.

Overview

The untold history of the multiracial making of the border between Canada and the United States. Often described as the longest undefended border in the world, the Canada-United States border was born in blood, conflict, and uncertainty. At the end of the American Revolution, Britain and the United States imagined a future for each of their nations that stretched across a continent. They signed treaties with one another dividing lands neither country could map, much less control. A century and a half later, they had largely fulfilled those earlier ambitions. Both countries had built nations that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific and had created an expansive international border that restricted movement. The vision that seemed so clear in the minds of diplomats and politicians was never so well-defined on the ground. As A Line of Blood and Dirt argues, both countries built their border across Indigenous lands using hunger, violence, and coercion to displace existing communities and to disrupt their ideas of territory and belonging. Drawing on oral histories, map visualizations, and archival sources, Benjamin Hoy reveals the role Indigenous people played in the development of the international boundary, as well as the impact the border had on Indigenous people, European settlers, Chinese migrants, and African Americans. Unable to prevent movement at the border's physical location for over a century, Canada and the United States instead found ways to project fear across international lines. Bringing together the histories of tribes, immigration, economics, and the relationship of neighboring nations, A Line of Blood and Dirt offers a new history of Indigenous peoples and the borderland.

Full Product Details

9780197528693

Table of Contents

Reviews

Novel and powerful is Hoy's dedication to demonstrating how Indigenous peoples were not hapless victims of border creation and enforcement....Race, proximity to the border, the impact of broader geopolitical developments, the surprisingly potent influence of local border officials, and other factors all complicate attempts to generalize what the border meant to people or how it influenced them....The consistent inclusion of on-the-ground perspectives adds striking intimacy and humanity to what could otherwise be a macrolevel and impersonal administrative text....Hoy's analytical apparatus and methodology elevate what would already be a useful narrative of border history.....Scholars on both sides of the Canada-US border in a host of historical fields will greatly benefit from this carefully researched and powerfully written text. * Brenden W. Rensink, Canadian Journal of History * A marvellous easy-to-follow examination of the Canadian-American borderlands from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean from the 1870s to the 1930s. It is a well-written and enjoyable narrative of how Canada and the United States created an international border across a landscape already filled with Indigenous borders....Throughout its history, the border comes more clearly into focus through its inconsistencies, impositions, contestations, and inequalities. What is clear is the centrality of Indigenous peoples to the development of the border. A Line of Blood and Dirt is...a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the stretch and limit of state power along a border and its impact on peoples. * Karl Hele, Anishinabek News *

Author Information

Benjamin Hoy is an assistant professor of history at University of Saskatchewan, where he directs the Historical GIS Lab.

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