Indigenous American History

Long before state health care or food stamps, before the creation of welfare ghettoes in our major cities, America’s first experiment with socialism and government dependency practically destroyed the American Indian. Government experts created the Indian reservations. America’s churches whole-heartedly supported it, convinced the reservation would be the key to winning souls for Christianity.

The Natchez Indians: A History to 1735 is the story of the Natchez Indians as revealed through accounts of Spanish, English, and French explorers, missionaries, soldiers, and colonists, and in the archaeological record. Because of their strategic location on the Mississippi River, the Natchez Indians played a crucial part in the European struggle for control of the Lower Mississippi Valley.

A broad range of perspectives from natives and nonnatives makes this book the most complete account and analysis of the Lakota ghost dance ever published. A revitalization movement that swept across native communities of the West in the late 1880s, the ghost dance took firm hold among the Lakotas, perplexed and alarmed government agents, sparked the intervention of the US Army and culminated in the massacre of hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in December 1890.

From the “Trail of Tears” to Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, the narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the first contact between natives and settlers, tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo have both fascinated and perplexed outsiders with their history, language, and culture.

In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations—even to Cow Tom himself.

Long before there was a Duluth, Minnesota, the massive outcropping that divides the city emerged from the ridge of gabbro rock running along the westward shore of Lake Superior. A great westward migration carried the Ojibwe people to the Point of Rocks. Against this backdrop—Misaabekong, the place of the giants—the lives chronicled in Linda LeGarde Grover's book unfold, some in myth, some in long-ago times, some in an imagined present, and some in the author's family history, all with a deep bond to the land, one another, and the Ojibwe culture.

Life Among the Qallunaat is the story of Mini Aodla Freeman’s experiences growing up in the Inuit communities of James Bay and her journey in the 1950s from her home to the strange land and stranger customs of the Qallunaat, those living south of the Arctic. Her extraordinary story, sometimes humourous and sometimes heartbreaking, illustrates an Inuit woman’s movement between worlds and ways of understanding. It also provides a clear-eyed record of the changes that swept through Inuit communities in the 1940s and 1950s.

In Life Stages and Native Women, Kim Anderson shares the teachings of fourteen elders from the Canadian prairies and Ontario to illustrate how different life stages were experienced by Metis, Cree, and Anishinaabe girls and women during the mid-twentieth century.

A creature of myth and magic emerging from the mist-shrouded forests of the Northwest, Coyote appears as a creator, messenger, hero, trickster, fool, or shapeshifter. Always on the lookout for fun, mischief, or the opportunity to help humans, Coyote’s encounters with gods, demons and the supernatural bring to life the rich cultural traditions of the Northwest peoples.

Get over 200 fun, informative, and unique trivia questions about Native Americans! Are you a trivia buff? Do you love to learn new things? Have you always wanted to know more about Native American culture? If so, then this is the audiobook for you! You can match your skills against challenging trivia questions about topics like Native American leaders, major battles, artwork, religions, and languages. See how you measure up to the experts across 10 chapters packed to the brim with amazing lore, incredible facts, and fantastic puzzles.

The Raven is as much a paradoxical creature as he is important in the myths of many native cultures. The central character of these stories, the Raven is considered the benevolent creator, filling the world with beauty and harmony, the master mind behind all that is good and looked upon with warm admiration. On the other hand, he is often viewed as a malevolent conniving, scheming trickster with self-gratification as his only goal.

Before Indian casinos sprouted up around the country, a few enterprising tribes got their start in gambling by opening bingo parlors. A group of women on the Oneida Indian Reservation just outside Green Bay, Wisconsin, introduced bingo in 1976 simply to pay a few bills. Bingo not only paid the light bill at the struggling civic center but was soon financing vital health and housing services for tribal elderly and poor.

From the "Trail of Tears" to Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, the narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the first contact between natives and settlers, tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo have both fascinated and perplexed outsiders with their history, language, and culture.

“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).

El célebre visionario y curandero de los oglalas lakotas Alce Negro (1863-1950) conoció al distinguido poeta, escritor y crítico John G. Neihardt en 1930 en la reserva de Pine Ridge, en Dakota del Sur, y le pidió que compartiera su historia con el mundo. Sus desgarradoras visiones sobre la relación entre el ser humano y la tierra han convertido este libro en un clásico que atraviesa múltiples géneros.

Black Snake is the story of four leaders - LaDonna Allard, Jasilyn Charger, Lisa DeVille, and Kandi White - and their fight against the pipeline. It is the story of a new generation of environmental activists, galvanized at Standing Rock, becoming the protectors of America's natural resources.

In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics—the politics of ethnocide—played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of Indigenous people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald’s “National Dream.” It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day.

From the #1 national bestselling author of 'Indian' in the Cabinet and True Reconciliation, a truly unique history of our land—powerful, devastating, remarkable—as told through the voices of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

Ilarion Merculieff weaves the remarkable strands of his life and culture into a fascinating account that begins with his traditional Unangan (Aleut) upbringing on a remote island in the Bering Sea, through his immersion in both the Russian Orthodox Church and his tribe's holistic spiritual beliefs. He recounts his developing consciousness and call to leadership and describes his work of the past 30 years bringing together Western science and indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge and wisdom to address the most pressing issues of our time.

North Americans have long been fascinated by the Inuit, but this level of interest has been matched by a general lack of knowledge about the group itself. For centuries, they have been called Eskimos, despite the fact there are distinct differences within the group and many of them find the use of the word Eskimo offensive.