Indigenous Peoples : Home

America began, we are often told, with the Founding Fathers, the men who waged a revolution and created a unique place called the United States. We may acknowledge the early Jamestown and Puritan colonists and mourn the dispossession of Native Americans, but we rarely grapple with the complexity of the nation's pre-revolutionary past. In this pathbreaking revision, Daniel Richter shows that the United States has a much deeper history than is apparent--that far from beginning with a clean slate, it is a nation with multiple pasts that stretch back as far as the Middle Ages, pasts whose legacies continue to shape the present.

Exploring a vast range of original sources, Before the Revolution spans more than seven centuries and ranges across North America, Europe, and Africa. Richter recovers the lives of a stunning array of peoples--Indians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Africans, English--as they struggled with one another and with their own people for control of land and resources. Their struggles occurred in a global context and built upon the remains of what came before. Gradually and unpredictably, distinctive patterns of North American culture took shape on a continent where no one yet imagined there would be nations called the United States, Canada, or Mexico. By seeing these trajectories on their own dynamic terms, rather than merely as a prelude to independence, Richter's epic vision reveals the deepest origins of American history.

There is no question that European colonization introduced smallpox, measles, and other infectious diseases to the Americas, causing considerable harm and death to indigenous peoples. But though these diseases were devastating, their impact has been widely exaggerated. Warfare, enslavement, land expropriation, removals, erasure of identity, and other factors undermined Native populations. These factors worked in a deadly cabal with germs to cause epidemics, exacerbate mortality, and curtail population recovery. Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America challenges the "virgin soil" hypothesis that was used for decades to explain the decimation of the indigenous people of North America. This hypothesis argues that the massive depopulation of the New World was caused primarily by diseases brought by European colonists that infected Native populations lacking immunity to foreign pathogens.

In Beyond Germs, contributors expertly argue that blaming germs lets Europeans off the hook for the enormous number of Native American deaths that occurred after 1492. Archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians come together in this cutting-edge volume to report a wide variety of other factors in the decline in the indigenous population, including genocide, forced labor, and population dislocation. These factors led to what the editors describe in their introduction as "systemic structural violence" on the Native populations of North America. While we may never know the full extent of Native depopulation during the colonial period because the evidence available for indigenous communities is notoriously slim and problematic, what is certain is that a generation of scholars has significantly overemphasized disease as the cause of depopulation and has downplayed the active role of Europeans in inciting wars, destroying livelihoods, and erasing identities.

Borders is a masterfully told story of a boy and his mother whose road trip from Alberta to Salt Lake City is thwarted at the border when they identify their citizenship as Blackfoot. Refusing to identify as either American or Canadian first bars their entry into the US, and then their return into Canada. In the limbo between countries, they find power in their connection to their identity and to each other.

This much-anthologized story has been adapted into a gripping graphic novel by award-winning artist Natasha Donovan. A beautifully told tale with broad appeal, Borders resonates deeply with themes of identity, justice, and belonging.

"In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer's legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer's historical caricature, revealing a capable yet insecure man, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (court-martialed twice in six years) and the new corporate economy, a wartime emancipator who rejected racial equality. Stiles argues that, although Custer was justly noted for his exploits on the western frontier, he also played a central role as both a wide-ranging participant and polarizing public figure in his extraordinary, transformational time--a time of civil war, emancipation, brutality toward Native Americans, and, finally, the industrial revolution--even as he became one of its casualties. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation in Custer's tumultuous marriage to his highly educated wife, Libbie, their complicated relationship with Eliza Brown, the forceful black woman who ran their household, as well as his battles and expeditions. It casts new light on a near-mythic American figure, a man both widely known and little understood.

This fascinating account of a Yale-trained psychiatrist's twenty-year experience with Native American healing interweaves autobiography with stories of the Native Americans who challenged his medical school assumptions about their methods.

While working as a family physicans in a Native American hospital in the Southwest, Carl Hammerschlag was introduced to a patient named Santiago, a Pueblo priest and clan chief, who asked him where he had learned how to heal. Hammerschlag responded almost by rote, rattling off his medical education, internship, and certification.

The old man replied, "Do you know how to dance?"

To humor Santiago, Hammerschlag shuffled his feet at the priest's bedside. Despite his condition, Santiago got up and demonstrated the proper steps. "You must be able to dance if you are to heal people,"he admonished the young doctor."I can teach you my steps, but you will have to hear your own music."

Hammerschlag synthesizes his Jewish heritage with his experience with Native Americans to produce a practice open to all methods of healing. He discovers the wisdom of the Pueblo priest's question to his Western doctor, "Do you know how to dance?"

In The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, unabashedly opinionated, and utterly unconventional account of Indian-White relations in North America since initial contact. Ranging freely across the centuries and the Canada-U.S. border, King debunks fabricated stories of Indian savagery and White heroism, takes an oblique look at Indians (and cowboys) in film and popular culture, wrestles with the history of Native American resistance and his own experiences as a Native rights activist, and articulates a profound, revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.

Suffused with wit, anger, perception, and wisdom, The Inconvenient Indian is at once an engaging chronicle and a devastating subversion of history, insightfully distilling what it means to be "Indian" in North America. It is a critical and personal meditation that sees Native American history not as a straight line but rather as a circle in which the same absurd, tragic dynamics are played out over and over again. At the heart of the dysfunctional relationship between Indians and Whites, King writes, is land: "The issue has always been land." With that insight, the history inflicted on the indigenous peoples of North America--broken treaties, forced removals, genocidal violence, and racist stereotypes--sharpens into focus. Both timeless and timely, The Inconvenient Indian ultimately rejects the pessimism and cynicism with which Natives and Whites regard one another to chart a new and just way forward for Indians and non-Indians alike.

From New Yorker staff writer David Grann, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West--where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes like Al Spencer, the "Phantom Terror," roamed--many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed to more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the organization's first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled the case. In desperation, the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the bureau. The agents infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating.

This book provides the first comprehensive, region-wide, long-term, and accessible study of Native Americans in New England. This work is a comprehensive and region-wide synthesis of the history of the indigenous peoples of the northeastern corner of what is now the United States--New England--which includes the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Native Americans of New England takes view of the history of indigenous peoples of the region, reconstructing this past from the earliest available archeological evidence to the present. It examines how historic processes shaped and reshaped the lives of Native peoples and uses case studies, historic sketches, and biographies to tell these stories. While this volume is aware of the impact that colonization, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and racism had on the lives of indigenous peoples in New England, it also focuses on Native American resistance, adaptation, and survival under often harsh and unfavorable circumstances.

Native Americans of New England is structured into six chapters that examine the continuous presence of indigenous peoples in the region. The book emphasizes Native Americans' efforts to preserve the integrity and viability of their dynamic and self-directed societies and cultures in New England. Brings New England's Native American past to life through case studies, anecdotes, stories, and biographies Emphasizes the continued Native American presence in the region Includes various resources, such as a chronology, community information, Internet resources, and a bibliography

Nine accounts of the old time life of various Indian tribes of the Pacific northwest coast, including chapters on the Tlingit, Kwakiutl, Tsimshian, Coast Salish and Nootka.

They knew the messages the Sea Wind brought--of cold and storm. of sea lion and whale, of fish and seabird--more intimately than we ever could. From the fog-bound islands off Alaska, through the great dark fir, spruce, and redwood forests of the Northwest Coast, to the sun-drenched hills and tranquil seas of Southern California, they wove a magic closeness to their surroundings. They shared a sensitivity to the drama of plant and animal life, an intuitive grasp of the ocean's changing moods and the rhythms of freshwater rapids cascading down great mountains. They were the Native Americans of the Pacific Coast. [This] is the first book published since the 1890s to cover the entire 300-year history of their colorful and richly varied cultures. Illustrated with 23 line drawings and 51 photographs, it describes their art, artifacts, rituals, and family life. But more than that, [this book] makes these primitive and proud Native Americans come alive. Through tales and epic adventures from each tribe's oral lore, you will begin to know their sorrows, fears, and great triumphs. Come with Tuserpik, the Kaniagmiut hunter of whales, on his great quest for the sea king, the killer whale. Attack a Nootka village at the break of dawn with the fierce armor-plated warriors of the Haida, renowned sea rovers and Vikings of the northwest coast. Follow High Swallow, heroic youth of the Chumash and disciple of Wise Otter, greatest of cave painters, over the mountains and on to the singing Pacific to search for the Master of the Bear and the Eagle, who alone could save the Chumash from an overwhelming evil. And discover the secret of Eyes Awake, the Pomo woman of northern California, whose stubborn pride almost ruined her life until she awoke to the feel of plants against her fingers and the magic of root and tree and feather, making something from them that glowed with loveliness her people had never seen before. Vinson Brown has traveled the entire length of the Pacific coast visiting the sites of the Hupa, Karok, Chilula, Yurok, Tlingit, Makah, Hoh, Pomo, Kamia, and other tribes. Through his search for the legends of these people and his study of their lives before the white man came, he has recreated a vibrant picture of the Peoples of the Sea Wind as they once were.

Contents: [The native American : myth and media stereotyping] -- Myth and literature in a new world / Richard Slotkin -- The demon of the continent / Leslie A. Fiedler -- The static images / John C. Ewers -- The Indian as media hand-me-down / Donald L. Kaufmann -- Examination of stereotyping : an analytical survey of twentieth-century Indian entertainers / Ward Churchill, Mary Anne Hill, and Norbert S. Hill, Jr. -- The American Indian image in North America / Vine Deloria -- [The Indian in the film : early views] -- The 'Make-believe' Indian / Anon. -- Moving picture absurdities / W. Stephen Bush -- The dangers of employing Redskins as movie actors / Ernest Alfred Dench -- The Hollywooden Indian / Stanley Vestal -- The Red Man plays Indian / James F. Denton -- [The Indian in the film : later views] -- The stereotyping of North American Indians in motion pictures / John A. Price -- White man speaks with split tongue, forked tongue, tongue of snake / Ralph E. Friar and Natasha A. Friar -- The Indian in the Western movie / Philip French -- The role of the American Indians in motion pictures / Rita Keshena -- Reflections on the new Western films : The Jewish cowboy, the Black avenger, and the return of the vanishing American / John G. Cawelti -- [Photographic essay on the American Indian as portrayed by Hollywood] -- [Contemporary reviews] -- They have not spoken : American Indians in film / Dan Georgakas -- And afterwards, take him to a movie / Susan Rice -- Why Indians can't be villains any more / Richard Schickel -- Cheyenne Autumn / volume F. Perkins -- Little Big Man : the novel and the film / John W. Turner -- Americana : Tell them Willie boy is here / Pauline Kael -- A man called Horse and Flap / Stephen Farber -- Ulzana's raid / Richard Combs -- Buffalo Bill and the Indians / Tom Milne

This issue will address health care issues and clinical implications of rural and other medically underserved priority populations. The Agency for Health Care Research and Quality identified priority populations to include rural residents, racial and ethnic minorities, low income groups, women, children, older adults, and other individuals who may require chronic care.

The editors identified a need for articles focusing on priority populations to help further understand health implications of health disparities among specific populations. A main focus is on identifying useful clinically focused strategies to address racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences that are relevant and influence overall healthcare, access, and quality of life. The articles will provide clinicians and other consumers of Nursing Clinics of North America with a diverse and unique perspective on an array of clinically relevant and population focused topics.  Some example topics included are:  Tailoring interactive multimedia to improve diabetes self- management; Addressing mental and physical health among older adults; Using mobile devices to access evidence- based information in a rural setting; Identifying family history and development of risk factors for diabetes among underserved preschool children; Addressing smoking cessation, Cancer screening issues, Cardiovascular health, and Obesity.

Lament of my father, Lakota / Paula Gunn Allen -- Navajo girl of many farms / Charles G. Ballard -- You Northern girl / Charles G. Ballard -- Man of property / Charles G. Ballard -- During the pageant at Medicine Lodge / Charles G. Ballard -- Changing of the guard / Charles G. Ballard -- Time was the trail went deep / Charles G. Ballard -- Now the people have the light / Charles G. Ballard -- Sonnet XXIII / Ted Berrigan -- Red Eagle / Janet Campbell -- Nespelim man / Janet Campbell -- Moccasins of an old man / Ramona Carden -- Tumbleweed / Ramona Carden -- Drums / Martha Chosa -- Folding fan / Grey Cohoe -- Old man, the sweat lodge / Phil George -- Night blessing / Phil George -- Ask the mountains / Phil George -- Battle won is lost / Phil George

Musings / Patty Harjo -- Lost / Bruce Ignacio -- "Taste of honey" / King D. Kuka -- Death in the woods / Littlebird -- Yei-ie's child / Charles C. Long -- Direction / Alonzo Lopez -- Lavender kitten / Alonzo Lopez -- I am crying from thirst / Alonzo Lopez -- New way, old way / David Martinez -- This is today / David Martinez -- Indian prayer / Duane W. McGinnis -- Train rhythms and the color wheel / Duane W. McGinnis -- Song for Yellow Leaf Moon / Duane W. McGinnis -- Miracle hill / Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell -- New direction / Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell -- Path I must travel / Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell -- Four directions / Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell -- Bear / N. Scott Momaday -- Angle of geese / N. Scott Momaday -- Earth and i gave you turquoise / N. Scott Momaday -- Pit viper / N. Scott Momaday -- Buteo regalis / N. Scott Momaday -- Dancing teepees / Calvin O'John

Ten o'clock news / Simon Ortiz -- This preparation / Simon Ortiz -- Smoking my prayers / Simon Ortiz -- Relocation / Simon Ortiz -- Death takes only a minute / Agnes Pratt -- Empathy / Agnes Pratt -- Tale of last stands / Fred Red Cloud -- Machu Picchu, Peru / Fred Red Cloud -- Taking off / Ronald Rogers -- Kindergarten / Ronald Rogers -- Eyes of the child do not see me / Norman H. Russell -- World has many places, many ways / Norman H. Russell -- Great way of the man / Norman H. Russell -- Clerk's song II / Norman H. Russell -- Poems / Bruce Severy -- Opening day / Bruce Severy -- Deserted farms poem / Bruce Severy -- Struggle for the roads / Bruce Severy -- First and last / Bruce Severy -- Loneliness / Loyal Shegonee -- Once again / Liz Sohappy -- Parade / Liz Sohappy -- Indian love letter / Soge Track -- Emmet Kills-Warrior / Marnie Walsh -- Turtle Mountain Reservation / Marnie Walsh

Thomas Iron-Eyes, born circa 1840, died 1919, Rosebud Agency. So. Dak. / Marnie Walsh -- Vickie, Fort Yates, No. Dak., 1970 / Marnie Walsh -- Seth Dismounts Thrice, Rapid City, So. Dak. 1967 / Marnie Walsh -- Charlie Two-Head, White Shield, No. Dak., 1968 -- Bessie Dreaming Bear, Rosebud, So. Dak 1960 / Marnie Walsh -- Navajo sighs / Winifred Fields Walters -- Hogan / Archie Washburn -- Unknown smoke / Archie Washburn -- Man from Washington / James Welsh -- One more time / James Welsh -- Dreaming winter / James Welsh -- Harlem, Montana: just off the reservation / James Welsh -- August 24, 1963 -- 1:00 A.M. -- Omaha / Donna Whitewing -- Vegetable I will not be / Donna Whitewing -- Wrong kind of love / Ray Young Bear -- Warrior dreams / Ray Young Bear -- One chip of human bone / Ray Young Bear -- Empty streams of autumn / Ray Young Bear -- Listening rock / Ray Young Bear

In 1911, a group of Native American intellectuals and activists joined together to establish the Society of American Indians (SAI), an organization by Indians for Indians. It was the first such nationwide organization dedicated to reform. They used a strategy of protest and activism that carried into the rest of the twentieth century. Some of the most prominent members included Charles A. Eastman (Dakota), Arthur Parker (Seneca), Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai), Zitkala-Sa (Yankton Sioux), and Sherman Coolidge (Peoria). They fought for U.S. citizenship and quality education. They believed these tools would allow Indigenous people to function in the modern world without surrendering one's identity. They believed this could be accomplished by removing government controls over Indian life.

Historian Thomas Constantine Maroukis discusses the goals, strategies, successes, and failures of the Indigenous intellectuals who came together to form the SAI. They engaged in lobbying, producing publications, informing the media, hundreds of speaking engagements, and annual conferences to argue for reform. Unfortunately, the forces of this era were against reforming federal policies: The group faced racism, a steady stream of negative stereotyping as a so-called vanishing race, and an indifferent federal bureaucracy. They were also beset by internal struggles, which weakened the organization.

This work sheds new light on the origins of modern protest in the twentieth century, and it shows how the intellectuals and activists associated with the SAI were able to bring Indian issues before the American public, challenging stereotypes and the "vanishing people" trope. Maroukis argues that that the SAI was not an assimilationist organization; they were political activists trying to free Indians from government wardship while maintaining their cultural heritage.

Before the Davie Crockets, the Daniel Boones and Jim Bridgers, the French had pushed far west and north establishing trade and kin networks across the continent. They founded settlements that would become great cities such as Detroit, Saint Louis, and New Orleans, but their history has been largely buried or relegated to local lore or confined to Quebec.

In this seminal work, Foxcurran, Bouchard, and Malette Scrutinize primary sources and uncover the alliances, organic links and métissage, or mixing, between early French settlers and voyageurs and the indigenous nations. It began with the founding of New France by Samuel de Champlain in the early 1600s and continued well into the 19th century long after France was no longer a force in North America.

The authors' keen and accessible story telling, combined with vintage maps, forgotten documents (such as the little known writings of Alexis de Tocqueville), and old photos or paintings propel the account of the peoples engendered and still thriving, their French lingua franca, and their ways of life back into the heart of the narrative of North American history where they belong. Songs Upon the Rivers also challenges historical orthodoxies regarding the Canadien Métis. These descendants of the French with mixed ancestry developed a hybrid culture with close kinship ties with indigenous peoples across the continent. They kept their French songs and language, which effectively made French the lingua franca of the American and Canadian West well into the 19th century.

I: Tribal perspectives on preservation -- Defining the topic and the terms -- Preservation issues and American Indian policy -- American Indians as objects of study -- Tribal preservation program elements -- Tribal perspectives in summary -- II: Tribal participation in the National Historic Preservation program -- Tribal perspectives on states and federal agencies -- The National Park Service and the Chaco archeological protection sites -- Federal agency perspectives -- State historic preservation office perspectives -- III: Funding needs for tribal preservation programs -- Tribal perspective -- the written survey -- Fiscal year 1990 historic preservation grants to Indian tribes -- IV: Findings and recommendations -- Findings -- Recommendations -- Conclusions