Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren't looking because you were trying to stay alive
- Braiding Sweetgrass, The Council of Pecans (p.17).
Atlas of the North American Indian by
Combining clear, informative text with a wealth of maps and illustrations, this unique resource offers the most comprehensive cartographic account available of the history and culture of Native American groups across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Chronology of Native North American History by 
Encyclopedia of American Indian Issues Today by
This essential reference examines the history, culture, and modern tribal concerns of American Indians in North America. Despite the fact that 565 federally recognized tribes exist on the continent of North America, non-Native Americans typically know very little about the modern world of American Indians. In a few instances, the uneasy coexistence of the two cultures has served to create controversy, such as fake Indians fraudulently leveraging ethnicity-based benefits, U.S. officials disposing of nuclear waste near reservations, and sports clubs basing mascots on cultural stereotypes. This unique survey scrutinizes the historical background as well as the contemporary issues of American Indian societies as both part of--and completely separate from--the world around them. Encyclopedia of American Indian Issues Today features subjects commonly discussed, including reservations, poverty, sovereignty, the problem of solid waste on reservations, and the lives of urban Indians, among other contemporary issues. Organized into ten sections, the book also provides helpful sidebars and informative essays to address topics on casinos and gaming, sexual identity, education, and poverty. Sidebars with additional information, resources, and primary source excerpts Contributions from top scholars in the field Bibliographies at the end of each essay for additional research
The Encyclopedia of Native American Legal Tradition by
Integrating American Indian law and Native American political and legal traditions, this encyclopedia includes detailed descriptions of nearly two dozen Native American Nations' legal and political systems such as the Iroquois, Cherokee, Choctaw, Navajo, Cheyenne, Creek, Chickasaw, Comanche, Sioux, Pueblo, Mandan, Wyandot, Powhatan, Mikmaq, and Yakima. Although not an Indian law casebook, this work does contain outlines of many major Indian law cases, congressional acts, and treaties. It also contains profiles of individuals important to the evolution of Indian law. This work will be of interest to scholars in several fields, including law, Native American studies, American history, political science, anthropology, and sociology.
Handbook of North American Indians by
This volume provides a basic reference work on Indians and Arctic peoples as a continuing element in a changing and sometimes difficult environment responding to the social forces around them, making such accommodations as circumstances require, but remaining identifiably Indian in a contemporary society.
Native America in the Twentieth Century by
First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by
Beginning with the tribes' devastating loss of land and the forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools, he shows how the period of greatest adversity also helped to incubate a unifying Native identity. He traces how conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of their self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is an essential, intimate history - and counter-narrative - of a resilient people in a transformative era.
Indians of the Pacific Northwest by
Prior to the onslaught of the Europeans, the Puget Sound area was one of the most heavily populated regions north of Mexico City. The Native Americans who lived there enjoyed a bounty of seafood, waterfowl, and berries, which they expertly collected and preserved. Detailing the associated culture, technologies, and techniques, Vine Deloria Jr. explains in depth this veritable paradise and its ultimate demise. Raising the possibility that the utopian lifestyle enjoyed by the Indians of the Pacific Northwest might have continued in perpetuity had Europeans not sought a Northwest Passage. Deloria describes in devastating detail the ramifications of the Europeans' migration into the territory. With more than two thousand American settlers in the Pacific Northwest by 1852, and with many more to come, the outbreak of disease and the encroachment of land speculators, railroad capitalists, and logging and mining interests forced the Native Americans to give up their ancestral lands and move to reservations. Deloria speaks with a measure of sadness, outrage, and hope, writing a moving account of the Pacific Northwest Indians' struggle that began with the arrival of the white settlers and continues today.
Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes by
For the first time in the two hundred years since Lewis and Clark led their expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific, we hear the other side of the story—as we listen to nine descendants of the Indians whose homelands were traversed. Among those who speak: Newspaper editor Mark Trahant writes of his childhood belief that he was descended from Clark and what his own research uncovers. Award-winning essayist and fiction writer Debra Magpie Earling describes the tribal ways that helped her nineteenth-century Salish ancestors survive, and that still work their magic today. Montana political figure Bill Yellowtail tells of the efficiency of Indian trade networks, explaining how axes that the expedition traded for food in the Mandan and Hidatsa villages of Kansas had already arrived in Nez Perce country by the time Lewis and Clark got there a few months and 1,000 miles later. Umatilla tribal leader Roberta Conner compares Lewis and Clark’s journal entries about her people with what was actually going on, wittily questioning Clark’s notion that the natives believed the white men “came from the clouds”—in other words, they were gods. Writer and artist N. Scott Momaday ends the book with a moving tribute to the “most difficult of journeys,” calling it, in the truest sense, for both the men who entered the unknown and those who watched, “a vision quest,” with the “visions gained being of profound consequence.” Some of the essays are based on family stories, some on tribal or American history, still others on the particular circumstances of a tribe today—but each reflects the expedition’s impact through the prism of the author’s own, or the tribe’s, point of view. Thoughtful, moving, provocative, Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes is an exploration of history—and a study of survival—that expands our knowledge of our country’s first inhabitants. It also provides a fascinating and invaluable new perspective on the Lewis and Clark expedition itself and its place in the long history of our continent.
A Walk Toward Oregon: A Memoir by
From the distinguished historian -- celebrated for his writings about the American West and American Indians -- an account of his journey across the twentieth century. Impassioned participant in and acute observer of the life of his times, Alvin Josephy takes us from the New York of the teens and twenties to the 1990s on the Oregon ranch where he has found his heart's home. His "walk" leads him to Harvard during the hopeful days of the New Deal; to scriptwriting for MGM in Hollywood and menial work on Wall Street in the Depression; through a job with the Herald Tribune (for which he interviewed Leon Trotsky); to the wartime landings on Iwo Jima and Guam, which he covered as a Marine Corps combat correspondent; to an antiwar march with Martin Luther King, Jr.; to his profound involvement in Native American and environmental causes. Josephy tells how it was that he found his true calling -- becoming an advocate for American Indians and the land they once called their own. In a wonderful way, he gives witness to two Americas: He renders the excitement of the go-go industrial expansionist nation that came into being in the first half of the century and burst onto the world after the war. At the same time he chronicles our growing awareness of another America -- the land and people who had no voice as the country around them grew. His astute understanding of the events he witnessed and became part of, and the spirited, evocative quality of his narrative, combine to capture the life, the turmoil, the problems, progress, setbacks, and satisfactions, of this American Century. A Walk Toward Oregon will move and delight readers who have lived these years themselves, as well as the young who want to know firsthand what came before them. It will stand as an indispensable document of our time.
American Indians in American History, 1870-2001: A Companion Reader by
Although coverage of American Indian history has improved remarkably in the past 20 years, the role of American Indians is still downplayed in many mainstream American history courses. In-depth discussions of United States policies toward Native Americans or the reactions of Native Americans do not appear in most textbooks. This book helps to overcome these shortcomings. Designed to accompany post-Reconstruction survey courses, it will help to integrate aspects of American Indian history. Arranged according to time periods used in most textbooks, the book's seventeen essays_many written by leading scholars, several written by American Indian scholars_discuss important policy considerations as well as environmental, religious, cultural, and gender issues. Providing a good point of departure, these essays can be used in tandem with other materials to stimulate class discussion. While every aspect of American history could not be covered, each section includes an extensive list of suggested additional reading. The volume is unique in that it is the only companion reader designed to accompany college courses covering this time period. It is a book to be used by instructors who are not necessarily Native Americanists but who wish to include the history of American Indians in their survey courses.
All the Real Indians Died Off by
Unpacks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about Native Americans In this enlightening book, scholars and activists Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker tackle a wide range of myths about Native American culture and history that have misinformed generations. Tracing how these ideas evolved, and drawing from history, the authors disrupt long-held and enduring myths such as- "Columbus Discovered America" "Thanksgiving Proves the Indians Welcomed Pilgrims" "Indians Were Savage and Warlike" "Europeans Brought Civilization to Backward Indians" "The United States Did Not Have a Policy of Genocide" "Sports Mascots Honor Native Americans" "Most Indians Are on Government Welfare" "Indian Casinos Make Them All Rich" "Indians Are Naturally Predisposed to Alcohol" Each chapter deftly shows how these myths are rooted in the fears and prejudice of European settlers and in the larger political agendas of a settler state aimed at acquiring Indigenous land and tied to narratives of erasure and disappearance. Accessibly written and revelatory, "All the Real Indians Died Off" challenges readers to rethink what they have been taught about Native Americans and history.
Encyclopedia of United States Indian Policy and Law by
An essential reference on the reciprocal role that U.S. and Native policy and law have played in American political development Created by a culturally diverse editorial board of major scholars and containing invaluable bibliographic material not found in other publications, this definitive two-volume set examines the history and impact of U.S. relations with Native Americans. Extensive essays trace policies from the Continental Congress to the present day--including the role that managing the "Indian question" has played in American political development--while A to Z entries cover everything critical to a full understanding of the context to U.S./Native American relations, from history, politics, and sociology to civil rights and culture. The set is also the first reference of its kind to incorporate the expanding scholarship reflecting both the Native American viewpoint on and response to federal policies and initiatives over time.
For those who would like to access an electronic version of the book.
Braiding Sweetgrass by For those who would like a physical copy of the book.
Braiding Sweetgrass by
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. InBraiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings--asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass--offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgmentand celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
For those who would like to listen to the book.
Braiding Sweetgrass by
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation." As she explores these themes, she circles toward a central argument: The awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return.
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