Hello, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center,

and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate. The National Constitution

centers a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase awareness and

understanding of the Constitution among the American people. In honor of

Native American History Month.

Today we're sharing a town hall we hosted recently on the Battle for the American West.

I moderated a great conversation which discussed Manifest Destiny, U.S. Westward Expansion, and the impact on Native people.

And next week we'll have a discussion about the Holland against Brahine case involving

the Indian Child Welfare Act that the Supreme Court recently heard.

For today, our guests are H.W. Brands author of the last campaign, Sherman Geronimo,

in the War for America.

Lori Dagger, author of cultivating empire, capitalism, philanthropy,

and the negotiation of American imperialism and Indian country, and Lindsay Robertson, author of

conquest by law, how the discovery of America dispossessed indigenous people of their lands.

Enjoy the show.

Bill Brands, let's begin with you.

Your riveting new book, The Last Campaign, Sherman, Geronimo,

and the War for America uses the story of Sherman and Geronimo

to illuminate the Battle for the American West, which began in many ways,

as you suggest with the policy led by Andrew Jackson and others to reap people Native Americans to the West,

to remove them from their lands,

and expatriate them to the unsettled territory.

...