Mark Smith | Author

The Indian Farmer, 1850

Aug. 14, 2021

In the 1836 Treaty of Washington, D.C., the Odawa gave up vast amounts of land in exchange for certain benefits, one of which was receiving a government-appointed blacksmith and an Indian farmer for each settlement. 

The great push to “civilize” the Indians (as they… Read More >>

Love & War

April 3, 2021

“Attached to Colonel DeLand's First Michigan Sharpshooters was a company of civilized Indians who won fame at Spottsylvania. On that bloody 9th of May, 1864, the Federal line, advancing with a cheer, met the charging enemy in a dense thicket of pines, and in the hand-to-hand strug… Read More >>

Voter Suppression in Bingham Township, 1866

Oct. 17, 2020

There’s an old aphorism about remembering history: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Generally credited to Spanish-born philosopher and poet George Santayana and often tweaked in the retelling (the most common variation, &… Read More >>