Native American Politics

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.

Five hundred years of colonization have taken an incalculable toll on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas: substance-use disorders and shockingly high rates of depression, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions brought on by genocide and colonial control. With passionate logic and chillingly clear prose, author and educator Suzanne Methot uses history, human development, and her own and others’ stories to trace the roots of Indigenous cultural dislocation and community breakdown in an original and provocative examination of the long-term effects of colonization.

Professor N. Bruce Duthu, J.D., is an internationally recognized scholar on Native American issues. In American Indians and the Law, he highlights the major events, the differing principles, and the evolving perspectives that have governed relations among the Indian tribes, the federal government, and the states.

Judge, senator, and activist. Father, grandfather, and friend. This is Murray Sinclair’s story—and the story of a nation—in his own words, an oral history that forgoes the trappings of the traditionally written memoir to center Indigenous ways of knowledge and storytelling. As Canada moves forward into the future of Reconciliation, one of its greatest leaders guides us to ask the most important and difficult question we can ask of ourselves: Who are we?

Acclaimed historian Colin G. Calloway, Dartmouth professor of history and American Indian studies, is the series editor for The Penguin Library of American Indian History. Rich in detail and highly readable, this compelling narrative portrays the Shawnees' valiant struggle to maintain their way of life.

This story has its beginnings on a day long ago when Earth rolled and heaved, and rocks fell like rain... Thus began what some today would call a “migration” of The Walking People. Leaderless and bereft of the shared knowledge of tradition, they set off on their journey. Their story is the story of how one particular group of human beings was able to start anew - to learn through difficulty and changing circumstance to prosper as a Whole People.

When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again - this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.

Sins of the Shovel is a story of adventure and business gone wrong and how archaeologists today grapple with this complex heritage. Through the story of the Hyde Exploring Expedition, practicing archaeologist Rachel Morgan uncovers the uncomfortable links between commodity culture, contemporary ethics, and the broader political forces that perpetuate destructive behavior today. The result is an unsparing and even-handed assessment of American archaeology's sins, past and present, and how the field is working toward atonement.

The book reveals the universal and cosmic love of the Red Road. The Red Road is the philosophy/worldview/religion of the native Indian tribes/pueblos of North and South America. This worldview promotes integration with Mother Earth and the cosmos to achieve harmony within eternally evolving existence. Using the Chicano as an example, the book explores the human lifetime as a cosmic being with eternal cycles of reincarnation and integration. This cosmic journey is examined from the perspective of the Red Road.

The Chippewa shaman No-Eyes shares her wisdom and perspective on life. No-Eyes sits in her humble Colorado cabin, offering startling but compelling visions of the future, including some upheavals on the horizon. Listening intently to her teacher and new friend, Summer Rain learns about the unique relationship between the Earth Mother and the many creatures in her domain.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noe Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother. A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in. At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories and his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala.

One of the most definitive accounts of the training and work of a Pipe Carrier, I Send a Voice is a gripping first-person account inside a Native American sweat lodge ceremony. Evelyn Eaton writes of her resolve to become worthy of participating in this healing ritual as she embraces the whole length of "the hero's journey." Through tests and ordeals inside and outside of the lodge while following the shamanic spiritual path, she arrives at her ultimate request—a healing pipe of her own.

At a crucial and fragile moment in Canada's long history with Indigenous peoples, one of our most essential writers begins at the centre, capturing a web spanning centuries of community, art, and resistance. Based on years' worth of columns, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Here, we meet the creators, leaders, and everyday people preserving the beauty of their heritage one day at a time. But we also meet the ugliest side of colonialism, the Indian Act, and the communities who suffer most from its atrocities.

Through much of the 20th century, federal policy toward Indians sought to extinguish all remnants of native life and culture. That policy was dramatically confronted in the late 1960s when a loose coalition of hippies, civil rights advocates, Black Panthers, unions, Mexican-Americans, Quakers and other Christians, celebrities, and others joined with Red Power activists to fight for Indian rights. In Hippies, Indians and the Fight for Red Power, Sherry Smith offers the first full account of this remarkable story.

George Rogers Clark (1752-1818) led four victorious campaigns against the Indians and British in the Ohio Valley during the American Revolution, but his most astonishing coup was recapturing Fort Sackville in 1779 when he was only 26. For 18 days, in the dead of winter, Clark and his troops marched through bone-chilling nights to reach the fort. With a deft mix of guile and violence, Clark led his men to triumph without losing a single soldier.

Eagle Voice Remembers is John Neihardt's mature and reflective interpretation of the old Sioux way of life. He served as a translator of the Sioux past, whose audience has proved not to be limited by space or time. Through his writings, Black Elk, Eagle Elk, and other old men who were of that last generation of Sioux to have participated in the old buffalo-hunting life and the disorienting period of strife with the U.S. Army found a literary voice.

Indian peoples made some 400 treaties with the United States between the American Revolution and 1871, when Congress prohibited them. They signed nine treaties with the Confederacy, as well as countless others over the centuries with Spain, France, Britain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, Canada, and even Russia, not to mention individual colonies and states. In retrospect, the treaties seem like well-ordered steps on the path of dispossession and empire. The reality was far more complicated.

Uncover the untold story of the Taíno, the first people of the Caribbean, in this riveting exploration of history, culture, and resilience. From their ancient migrations through South America to their thriving societies across the islands, this book brings to life the rich legacy of the Taíno people. Delve into the vibrant daily lives of the Taíno, their spiritual beliefs rooted in the natural world, and their mastery of sustainable living.

The Navajo tribe, the Diné, are the largest tribe in the United States and live across the American Southwest. But over a century ago, they were nearly wiped out by the Long Walk, a forced removal of most of the Diné people to a military-controlled reservation in New Mexico. Send a Runner tells the story of a Navajo family using the power of running to honor their ancestors and the power of history to explain why the Long Walk happened.

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.