Native American Indian History

The belief that Native Americans might belong to the fabled “lost tribes of Israel” - Israelites driven from their homeland around 740 BCE - took hold among Anglo-Americans and Indigenous peoples in the United States during its first half century. In Lost Tribes Found, Matthew W. Dougherty explores what this idea can tell us about religious nationalism in early America.

A devout Puritan minister in 17th-century New England, Roger Williams was also a social critic, diplomat, theologian, and politician who fervently believed in tolerance. Banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, Williams purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and laid the foundations for the colony of Rhode Island as a place where Indian and English cultures could flourish side by side, in peace. James A. Warren tells the remarkable and little-known story of the alliance between Roger Williams's Rhode Island and the Narragansett Indians, and how they joined forces to retain their autonomy and their distinctive ways of life against Puritan encroachment.

Best known as a leader of the Indian takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1969, Adam Fortunate Eagle now offers an unforgettable memoir of his years as a young student at Pipestone Indian Boarding School in Minnesota. In this rare firsthand account, Fortunate Eagle lives up to his reputation as a "contrary warrior" by disproving the popular view of Indian boarding schools as bleak and prisonlike. Although Fortunate Eagle recognizes Pipestone's shortcomings, he describes his time there as nothing less than "a little bit of heaven."

Una guía fascinante de los conflictos que ocurrieron en América del Norte y su impacto en las tribus nativas americanas.

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness.

Although many Americans consider the establishment of the colonies as the birth of this country, in fact early America existed long before the arrival of the Europeans. From coast to coast, Native Americans had created enduring cultures, and the subsequent European invasion remade much of the land and society. In New Worlds for All, Colin G. Calloway explores the unique and vibrant new cultures that Indians and Europeans forged together in early America.

On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche received her medical degree - becoming the first Native American doctor in US history. She earned her degree 31 years before women could vote and 35 years before Indians could become citizens in their own country. This is the story of an Indian woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice and then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people.

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.

Indian Creek Massacre and Captivity of Hall Girls was written by Charles Martin Scanlan in 1915. The Indian Creek Massacre arose in 1832 at LaSalle County, Illinois, after a dispute about a settler-constructed dam that blocked fish from reaching a Native American village downstream. It’s a unique historical snapshot of early America centered around Sylvia and Rachel Hall, sisters who were the only survivors of the massacre and were abducted, as well as the story of Chief Shabona who was a member of the Ottowa and Potawatomi.

Charles Alexander Eastman (1858-1939) was a mixed-blood Sioux. He became one of the best known Indians of his time, receiving a bachelor of science degree from Dartmouth in 1887 and a medical degree from Boston University three years later.

Charles Alexander Eastman (1858-1939) was raised among the Sioux and decided to become a doctor in order to be of the greatest service to his people. He also became a distinguished writer and an interpreter of Native American life and customs. The Soul of the Indian is a rare eye-witness account of native religion with its ceremonial and symbolic worship, oral scriptures and view of the spirit world.

Indian lore of the Cuyamaca Mountains and surrounding region in San Diego County, California, abounds in myths and legends handed down from generation to generation by tribal song and squaw-tale. Yet so swiftly has the hand of civilization wiped out the old traditions and customs, that but few Indians remain who remember them, and fewer still are those willing to divulge them. Only when one comes into intimate contact with them is one accorded the privilege and honor of hearing the tales of their ancestors.

On the morning of November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington led 700 militiamen in a surprise attack against Cheyenne leader Black Kettle's camp at Sand Creek. Chivington was a fire and brimstone Methodist minister who had publicly advocated indiscriminately killing Native American children because "nits makes lice."

The Apache of the American Southwest have achieved almost legendary status for their fierceness and their tenacity in fighting the US Army. Names like Nana, Cochise, and Geronimo are synonymous with bravery and daring, and the tribe had that reputation long before the Americans arrived. Indeed, among all the Native American tribes, the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans learned the hard way that the warriors of the Apache were perhaps the fiercest in North America. Based in the Southwest, the Apache fought all three in Mexico and the American Southwest.

Arguably the last Indians living in Central Florida in 1883 were all massacred because the chief's favorite squaw loved White Man Cow. John asked the President of the United States to send soldiers to remove the Indians. John didn't think his request was out of line; after all the government had earlier been moving Indians to the "Indians Territory" (now Oklahoma) for years. But the President wouldn't do it. So John had to do it. He killed every man, woman and child. This is the story of why he did it.

This audio study guide for Facing East from Indian Country by Daniel K. Richter includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as cultural accommodation, racial antagonism, and the influence of resources and materials on historical events. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.

The war gets its name from British colonists’ two primary enemies: the French settlers and the Native Americans who sided with them. The title is a bit misleading, however, as the British also had Native Americans on their side at various points of the war. The conflict goes by "The Seven Years’ War" in Europe because it took place from 1756 to 1763. Britain’s victory solidified the future of the English-speaking North America we know today. However, it also led to the massacre of countless Native peoples throughout North America.

The Pawnee Indians were a fierce, proud, and determined people who called themselves the "men of men". Though there are many Native American tribes to learn about, the Pawnees were unique in many ways; they were a peace-loving, agricultural people with permanent settlements in what is now Nebraska. They dedicated themselves to their gods, the stars, and even arranged their villages according to important star clusters.

“Als wir noch jenseits des Großen Wassers wohnten, gab es zwölf Stämme, die zu den Cherokee-Indianern gehörten ...“ So beginnt die traditionelle Geschichte des Stammes, die zum Fest des Großen Mondes, dem Neujahrsfest, rezitiert und den jungen Cherokee bei Zusammenkünften gelehrt wurde. Sie wurde von Cornsilk alias William Eubanks, einem Zeitungsschreiber im Indian Territory, 1896 aufgezeichnet, basierend auf der ursprünglichen Erzählung in der Sprache der Cherokee, wie sie George Sahkiyah „Soggy“ Sanders, ebenfalls Mitglied in der Keetoowah Society.

Il nome collettivo Indiani, o Indios, venne applicato alle popolazioni native americane dagli esploratori spagnoli, e in generale europei, nell’età moderna. Ma cinquecento anni prima, intorno all'anno 1000, da quanto ci viene raccontato nelle saghe vichinghe giunte fino a noi, i nativi americani avevano già avuto qualche incontro più o meno benevolo con gli europei.