This book provides a history of the Canada-United States border from 1775 until 1939, highlighting the formation of each nation state, the role Indigenous people had in the development of the international boundary, and the impact the border had on Indigenous people, European settlers, Chinese migrants, and African Americans.
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.