Book Review: The Roots of Dependency

The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos. By Richard White (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). xix + 433 pp. $35.00

In The Roots of Dependency, Richard White examines the social consequences of human induced environmental change by studying three indigenous tribes: the Choctaw, Pawnee and Navajo. One of the motivating questions behind this study is why the economies of these indigenous people eventually failed to meet even their basic subsistence needs by the late 19th century and the reasons for the development of a dependent economic relationship with the United States. To answer this question White examines the economic structures of each of the three tribes mentioned above, their systems of agriculture, hunting methods, and eventually their work as ranchers on reservations. The conclusion which White draws from his examination of the changing Indian economies is that attempts by whites to bring indigenous resources, land and labor into the market was the primary cause of the resulting economic dependency on the United States. In arriving at this conclusion, White attacks the traditional belief that military supremacy and force were responsible for these changes.

White tests his thesis by examining the traditional economies of each of the three tribes, beginning in the pre-contact period and advancing through to the point where each tribe’s economy failed and dependency on the federal government was established. This was a gradual process, according to White, and in his study of the Choctaw he is most convincing. The Choctaw participated in a playoff system with the three major European powers in what is today the Southeast. Due to the fact that all three powers (the French, British, and later the Americans) desired a military alliance with the Choctaw, the tribe was able to acquire (and become dependent upon) an increasing number of trade goods. This system changed following the French and Indian War with the departure of the French from the status of colonial power in the Southeast. It was at this point that the demand for liquor led to the expansion of deer hunting for the hide trade, eventually leading to game shortages. This was a severe environmental effect that forced the Choctaw to fight wars of conquest to extend their territory and access to deer (in a situation akin to the Beaver Wars of the 17th century). This disruption of the economy and social unrest was what led the Choctaw to dependency.

Dependency theory is usually applied to Third World countries. In this case, political, economic and social factors are examined to determine why the country cannot sustain itself. White is applying the same theory to Native American economies. Many scholars who argue for dependency theory are materialists, meaning they believe that dependency resulted from a “single material and economic process that obliterated or subordinated all else”. White says this is not correct; dependency was a result of “a complex interchange of environmental, economic, political and cultural influences” that varied according to each tribe’s experience.

This book fits into the historiography of ethnohistory by offering a departure from traditional explanations put forth by materialists who argue that the failure of indigenous subsistence economies can be simplified to a case of too many whites and Indians, too few resources to go around. In contrast, White argues that dependency was not inevitable (it was the result of a complex series of sometimes unique situations) and that Indians tried to avoid dependency by migrating, changing subsistence strategies, and modifying their social organization.