American Indian

In these essays, stories, and reflections, trailblazing Yankton Dakota writer and artist Zitkála-Šá honors the rich heritage of Sioux oral tradition. She muses on her childhood and early schooling, shares warrior tales of ancient spirits, and tells of the foreboding appearance of white settlers and missionaries. As a committed activist and a seminal voice for change, Zitkála-Šá also explores the oppressive forces that sought to erase her culture and remove her people from their land.

Nine American Indian stories written by noted Native American author and advocate Zitkala-Su, Red Bird, that are endearing, moving, and sad. A must-listen for all students of American history and literature. Helen Keller’s letter of praise in 1919 serves as the introduction.

American Indian Stories is a collection of childhood stories, allegorical fictions, and essays written by the Sioux author Zitkala-Ša. The collection includes legends and stories from Sioux oral tradition, along with an essay titled "America's Indian Problem", which advocates rights for Native Americans and calls for a greater understanding of Native American cultures.

American Indian Fairytales is a collection of Native American folklore retold for children and young adults. Margaret Compton (1852-1903) drew on authentic lore from a wide selection of regions. The tales include "The Story-Teller Himself", "Snowbird and the Water-Tiger", "The Coyote or Prairie Wolf", and "How Mad Buffalo Fought the Thunder-Bird".

Deep in the heart of Northern Arizona, in a small and isolated patch of the vast 17.5 million-acre Navajo reservation, sits Chinle High School. Here, basketball is passion, passed from grandparent to parent to child. Celebrated Times journalist Michael Powell brings us a narrative of triumph and hardship, a moving story about a basketball team on a Navajo reservation that shows how important sports can be to youths in struggling communities, and the transcendent magic and painful realities that confront Native Americans living on reservations.

Millie Two Bears lives alone in a trailer in the heart of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Since her husband went to jail, she’s been on the outs with the reservation. And it’s not just people she has to contend with. Now the prairie dogs are moving in on her patch of land. When a strange woman comes into Millie’s life, and Millie’s rodent war escalates, a fateful confrontation with vengeance, secrets, and survival is just underfoot.

Ayesha Shetty lost her brother seven years ago, the same time she lost everything else important to her: her dreams, her fierce independence, and the man she loved. Not wanting to see her mother hurt anymore, she put her wild self away and became the dutiful daughter her mother needed and took on her brother’s role in the family business. Now her best friend’s big, fat Indian wedding is a chance to get away from her endless duties at the restaurant and maybe even have some fun (if she remembers how).

Of all the charming misfits on television, there's no doubt Raj from The Big Bang Theory - the sincere yet incurably geeky Indian American astrophysicist - ranks among the misfittingest. Now we meet the actor who is every bit as loveable as the character he plays on TV.

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

As the Revolutionary war draws to an end, the violence on the frontier only accelerates. The infamous Girty brothers incite Indians to a number to massacres, but when the Village of Peace, a Christian utopian settlement is destroyed, the settlers know they will have to hunt them down.

This synthesis of Indian-white relations west of the Appalachians from the end of the French and Indian War to the beginning of the Mexican War is not simply a story of whites versus Indians. The term "whites" encompassed British, Spanish, and American settlers and governments, and the hundreds of Indian tribes who opposed them were no more unified than their European colonizers.

Luther Standing Bear was seemingly everywhere in the course of his extraordinary life. He met Chief Crazy Horse on the eve of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, was enrolled in the first class at the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School, witnessed the Ghost Dance movement, toured the US and Europe with showman Buffalo Bill, and devoted his later years to Indian rights. His firsthand accounts of those experiences—and his reflections on Sioux culture, customs, and traditions—combine to make this narrative a landmark of Native American literature.

James Fenimore Cooper was the most popular American writer of his day, but today he is best known for The Last of the Mohicans. A part of his Leatherstocking Tales, The Last of the Mohicans takes place in 1757 during the French and Indian War, when France and England battled for control of the American and Canadian colonies.

Rahul Kapoor is heading into seventh grade in a small town in Indiana. The start of middle school is making him feel increasingly anxious, so his favorite person, his grandfather Bhai, gives him some well-meaning advice: Find one thing you’re really good at and become the best at it. Those four little words sear themselves into Rahul’s brain. While he’s not quite sure what that special thing is, he is convinced that once he finds it, bullies like Brent Miller will stop torturing him at school. And he won’t be worried about staring too long at his classmate Justin Emery.

At dawn on September 22, 1711, more than five hundred Tuscarora, Core, Neuse, Pamlico, Weetock, Machapunga, and Bear River Indian warriors swept down on the unsuspecting European settlers living along the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers of North Carolina. During the following days, they destroyed hundreds of farms, killed at least 140 men, women, and children, and took about 40 captives. So began the Tuscarora War, North Carolina's bloodiest colonial war and surely one of its most brutal.

Charles Alexander Eastman (1858 -1939), also known as “Ohiyesa”, was an author, physician, and lecturer of Santee Sioux and Anglo-American heritage. As a passionate advocate for the rights of American Indians, he took an active role in national politics. Indian Boyhood is a memoir that chronicles the first 15 years of his life with fascinating portrayals of Sioux culture, including training as a hunter and warrior, religious beliefs and practices, and the role of the medicine man.

Call them Native Americans, American Indians, indigenous peoples, or first nations - a vast and diverse array of nations, tribes, and cultures populated every corner of North America long before Columbus arrived. Native American History for Dummies reveals what is known about their pre-Columbian history and shows how their presence, customs, and beliefs influenced everything that was to follow. This straightforward guide breaks down their 10,000-plus year history and explores their influence on European settlement of the continent.

Most histories of the Cherokee nation focus on its encounters with Europeans, its conflicts with the U.S. government, and its expulsion from its lands during the Trail of Tears. This work, however, traces the origins of the Cherokee people to the third century B.C.E. and follows their migrations through the Americas to their homeland in the lower Appalachian Mountains.

A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.

A thriving fur trade post between 1830 and 1860, Fort Clark, in what is today western North Dakota, also served as a way station for artists, scientists, missionaries, soldiers, and other western chroniclers traveling along the Upper Missouri River. The written and visual legacies of these visitors have long been the primary sources of information on the cultures of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, the peoples who met the first fur traders in the area. This book is the first account of the fur trade at Fort Clark to integrate new archaeological evidence into the history.