Really interesting history of a period in the 1840s when it seemed genuinely uncertain whether the United States would be a continental entity or whether there would be multiple mostly white American nations, each with a particular relationship to whiteness, patriarchy, and slavery. At roughly the same time, Texas, Oregon, California, the Cherokee Nation, and the Mormons were creating supposedly independent republics of varying credibility. And then, by 1846, more suddenly than most contemporaries thought possible, the US swallowed them all. I found it to be a fascinating way to approach the meaning of “American”: the Cherokee Nation sought to be a nonwhite, slaveholding nation; the others sought various versions of white supremacy either by entrenching slavery (Texas) or excluding Black people (Oregon) and subjugating Californios (California). ( )