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.

Celebrated novelist David Treuer has gained a reputation for writing fiction that expands the horizons of Native American literature. In Rez Life, his first full-length work of nonfiction, Treuer brings a novelist's storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present. With authoritative research and reportage, Treuer illuminates misunderstood contemporary issues of sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation.

A controversial figure in his day, Black Hawk was the leader of the Sauk American Indian tribe in the early 1800s. The son of the tribe’s medicine man, Black Hawk’s exploits as a warrior aided his rise to the status of tribal war leader. Here, Black Hawk chronicles his life as well as the story of his tribe, who were forced from their lands in Illinois during a series of skirmishes with American settlers in what came to be known as the Black Hawk War.

Navajo myths are among the most poetic in the world, full of dazzling word imagery. For the Navajo, who call themselves the Dine (literally, "the People"), the story of emergence—their creation myth—lies at the heart of their beliefs. In it, all the world is created together, both gods and human beings, embodying the idea that change comes from within rather than without. Poet and author Gerald Hausman collects this and other stories with meditations that together capture the essence of the Navajo people's way of life and their understanding of the world.

Discover the soul, spirit, and history of the great Native American heritage—plus the healing power of Earth's medicine through traditional herbalism.

At the turn of the 19th century, one mile east of Grand Marais, Minnesota, you would have found Chippewa City, a village that as many as 200 Anishinaabe families called home. Today you will find only Highway 61, private lakeshore property, and the one remaining village building: St. Francis Xavier Church. In Walking the Old Road, Staci Lola Drouillard guides listeners through the story of that lost community, reclaiming for history the Ojibwe voices that have for so long, and so unceremoniously, been silenced.

Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest.

El libro revela el Amor Universal y Cósmico del Sendero Rojo. El Sendero Rojo es la filosofía/cosmovisión/religión de las tribus/pueblos indígenas nativos de América del Norte y del Sur. Esta cosmovisión promueve la integración con la Madre Tierra y el cosmos para lograr la armonía dentro de la Existencia en eterna evolución.

As late as the 1960s, tacos were virtually unknown outside Mexico and the American Southwest. Within fifty years the United States had shipped taco shells everywhere from Alaska to Australia, Morocco to Mongolia. But how did this tasty hand-held food - and Mexican food more broadly - become so ubiquitous? In Planet Taco, Jeffrey Pilcher traces the historical origins and evolution of Mexico's national cuisine, explores its incarnation as a Mexican American fast-food, shows how surfers became global pioneers of Mexican food, and how Corona beer conquered the world.

This one-volume narrative history of American Indians in the United States traces the experiences of indigenous peoples from early colonial times to the present day. It demonstrates how Indian existence has varied and changed throughout our nation's history. Although popular opinion and standard histories often depict tribal peoples as victims of US aggression, that is only a part of their story. In this book Roger L. Nichols focuses on the ideas, beliefs, and actions of American Indian individuals and tribes.

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.

Inspired by her own foremothers’ legacies and the friendships formed throughout her life, Rozella Kennedy centers and celebrates the stories of 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous women—both famous and little-known—who changed the course of US history. In the beautiful pages of Our...

Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column has been must reading for thoughtful liberals and conservatives alike. Now she issues an urgent, heartfelt call for all Americans to support the next President. Because it is not the threats and challenges we face, but how we face them that defines us as...

The author of 18 spellbinding detective novels set on the Navajo Nation, Tony Hillerman simultaneously transformed a traditional genre and unlocked the mysteries of the Navajo culture to an audience of millions. His best-selling novels added Navajo Tribal Police detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee to the pantheon of American fictional detectives.

Athletics in Central and North American societies go much further back than most people realize. The native peoples took their sports just as seriously as any of today’s most fervent soccer fans. One major difference between modern sports and these aboriginal games is that the native people's sports often had strong religious content, and games were sometimes seen as literal substitutes for war, played to resolve disputes between towns or tribes.

Most Americans have heard of the Little Bighorn, the 1876 battle in which a band of Lakota Sioux and their allies wiped out most of the 7th US Cavalry under the command of George Armstrong Custer. The movie images are of fierce warriors in long eagle feather headdresses flowing behind them as they gallop across the plains on nimble Indian ponies.

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.

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.

On a hot summer day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry to the most famous defeat in U.S. military history. Outnumbered and exhausted, the Seventh Cavalry lost more than half of its 400 men, and every soldier under Custer's direct command was killed. It's easy to understand why this tremendous defeat shocked the American public at the time. But with Custerology, Michael A. Elliott tackles the far more complicated question of why the battle still haunts the American imagination today.

In 1832, the Sauk warrior Black Hawk attempted to forge an alliance to preserve the homelands of the confederated tribes on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. Patrick J. Jung examines the causes, course, and consequences of the ensuing war with the U.S. Correcting mistakes that plagued previous histories, and drawing on recent ethno-historical interpretations, Jung shows the outcome can be understood by discussing intertribal rivalry, military ineptitude, and racial dynamics.