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I AM GRATEFUL to many people who on my behalf made strategic forays into archives and libraries around the country: Felecia Caples (Ripley, Mississippi), Brian Carnaby (Topeka, Kansas), Ross Corsair (Garrison, New York), Ahmed Deidán de la Torre (Austin, Texas), Courtney DeFelice and Menika Dirkson (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Marisela Emperatriz Esparza (Oakland, California), Andrew Epstein (New Haven, Connecticut), Meggan Farish (Durham, North Carolina), Nicole Gallucci (Athens, Georgia), Nina Halty (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Jeff Hobbs (Madison, Wisconsin), Elana Krischer (Albany, New York), Lana Newhart-Kellen (Fishers, Indiana), James Owen (Athens, Georgia), Sarah Pickman (New Haven and New York City), Alex Post (Oakland, California), Sherri Sheu (Washington, D.C.), Adam Tate (Clayton, Georgia), Kurt Windisch (Montgomery, Alabama), and Laurie Woodson (Phenix City, Alabama).
I’d also like to thank a number of other individuals who contributed to this project in various ways. Patrick Del Percio of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library took on several challenging Cherokee translations. Jack Baker, the president of the Oklahoma Historical Society and one of the world’s experts on Cherokee history, generously shared with me his knowledge of mortality statistics on the Trail of Tears. Andrew Zawacki helped pull me along on more than one occasion and also took the author photo.
Throughout this multiyear project, my editor at W. W. Norton, Tom Mayer, remained enthusiastic and optimistic. He is both exacting and accommodating, a difficult balance to strike. Likewise, my agent Lisa Adams at the Garamond Agency was supportive from beginning to end and always willing to weigh in when I needed her experienced advice. Thanks too to Nneoma Amadi-obi for reading the manuscript and steering it through the production process.
Several of my colleagues at the University of Georgia shared their expertise with me when I went to them with questions, including Sergio Bernardes, Steve Berry, Oscar Chamosa, Jamie Kreiner, Stephen Mihm, Scott Nelson, Dan Rood, Steve Soper, and Jace Weaver. In addition, a number of friends and colleagues elsewhere helped me clarify my thoughts, especially on the financing of dispossession. They include the participants in the Johns Hopkins Seminar and the 2017 Harvard capitalism conference, as well as Sven Beckert, Ann Daly, Christine A. Desan, and Robert Wright. Michael Kwass provided essential computer assistance. Peter Wood deserves special mention for generously agreeing to chair a critical “Unconference” in Athens, Georgia, on very short notice in late March 2019.
Above all, I’d like to thank Rachel for her unconditional support and loving companionship and Leo and Milo for their good humor, magic shows, updates on the Giro, pappardelle and pizza, and all the other wonderful and unpredictable diversions that they bring to my life.