The Irish in America’s Indian Wars: A Dark History

In the late nineteenth century the United States pushed west and its expansion unleashed devastating violence against Native Americans. Forced from their lands and herded onto reservations Native communities faced a relentless campaign of dispossession and massacre. Thousands of miles away in Ireland deep poverty drove many to enlist in the US Army and they became participants in these same frontier wars. This contradiction is stark. People who had been pushed from their own homes by hardship helped push Native Americans from theirs and in some cases took part in atrocities.

In this episode Damian Shiels joins me to talk about his remarkable new project mapping US military pensions claimed in Ireland between 1845 and 1905. These files are a window into working class Irish life and also reveal how closely Irish history is tied to some of the darkest chapters of American expansion. Our conversation focuses on the Indian Wars and the uncomfortable questions they raise. It is a complex story that challenges assumptions and connects global history to local Irish streets and villages in surprising ways.

Check out the map https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4e3d403b289342ad92a9259de2597c24

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Sound by Kate Dunlea

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