Native American Indian History

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was the culmination of the United States' policy to force native populations to relocate west of the Mississippi River. The most well-known episode in the eviction of American Indians was the "Trail of Tears" along which Southeastern Indians were driven from their homes in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, to reservations in present-day Oklahoma. But the struggle in the South was part of a wider story that reaches back in time to the War of 1812, back through many states and into the lives of so many tribes who were also forced to depart from their homes.

A dramatic new look at Custer's Last Stand in time for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, by the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Heart of Everything That Is. On June 25–27, 1876, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand...

In The Search for the Codex Cardona, Arnold J. Bauer tells the story of his experiences on the trail of a cultural treasure, a Mexican “painted book” that first came into public view at Sotheby’s auction house in London in 1982, nearly 400 years after it was presumably made by Mexican artists and scribes. On folios of amate paper, the Codex includes two oversized maps and 300 painted illustrations accompanied by text in 16-century paleography.

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.

Longfellow's great narrative poem has been unjustly neglected in recent years though it gives a sympathetic portrait especially of Hiawatha, reared by Nokomis, daughter of the Moon, and his bride Minehaha.

Charles Eastman, otherwise known as Hakadah, was a full-blooded Sioux who learned the manners and stoical ways of patience and bravery expected of every Indian boy. This book is a first-hand account of his life until the age of 15.

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.

In Brethren by Nature, Margaret Ellen Newell reveals a little-known aspect of American history: English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of Indians. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists' desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, including the Pequot War of 1637, King Philip's War of 1675-76, and the northeastern Wabanaki conflicts of 1676-1749.

American Indians remain familiar as icons, yet poorly understood as historical agents. In this ambitious book that ranges across Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and eastern California (a region known as the Great Basin), Ned Blackhawk places Native peoples squarely at the center of a dynamic and complex story as he chronicles two centuries of Indian and imperial history that profoundly shaped the American West.

What if the history of America's largest Indian nation is actually a polite modern fiction, one invented by "anthropologists and other friends"? In this sweeping revisionist study of the Cherokee Indians, a scholar trained in classical philology and the new science of genetics discloses the inside story of his tribe. The narrative starts in the third century BCE and concludes with the Cherokees' removal to Indian Territory in the 19th century, when all standard histories just begin.

During the years of the Early Republic, prominent Native leaders regularly traveled to American cities primarily on diplomatic or trade business, but also from curiosity. They were frequently referred to as "the Chiefs now in this city" during their visits. Colin Calloway has gathered together the accounts of these visits and created a new narrative of the country's formative years, redefining what has been understood as the "frontier." Calloway captures what Native peoples observed as they walked the streets, sat in pews, attended plays, drank in taverns, and slept in hotels.

One of the most groundbreaking and highly acclaimed titles that Heyday has published, The Ohlone Way describes the culture of the Indian people who inhabited the Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans. Recently included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Top 100 Western Non-Fiction” list, The Ohlone Way has been described by critic Pat Holt as a “mini-classic”.

Author grew up as an Indian, went to work in the White man's world as a doctor, and wrote extensively about Indian history, culture, values, honor, and being pushed off the land to Indian Reservations.

On November 4, 1791, a coalition of warriors determined to set the Ohio River as a permanent boundary between tribal lands and White settlements faced an army led by Arthur St. Clair—the resulting horrific struggle ended in the greatest defeat of an American army at the hands of Native Americans. The road to the battle of the Wabash began when Arthur St. Clair was appointed to lead an army into the heart of the Ohio Indian Confederacy while building a string of fortifications along the way. He would face difficulties in recruiting, training, feeding, and arming volunteer soldiers.

Stories define us. They tell us who we are or, at least, who we think we are. The American story of westward expansion draws upon heroic tales of courage and perseverance and the "pioneer spirit". But settlers and their descendants also spread false narratives about Indians in order to justify ruinous private and public acts. The stories we heard and the tales we hear even now give people cover to behave abominably. And this abominable behavior has economic effect.

In this work, I reclaim the stories of my Cherokee, Lumbee, Monacan, and African ancestors. Through poetic reflection, historical insight, and symbolic naming, I honor the grandmothers listed only by race, the daughters who braided stories into silence, and the sons who carried tribal memory in their hands. Unnamed is both a tribute and a testimony—a sacred offering to those reduced to tick marks, racial codes, or blank spaces in census ledgers. It is my reclamation of identity, my restoration of dignity, and my resurrection of ancestral truth.

Some of these plans were intended to wipe out Native Americans entirely while some others were meant to curtail efforts of Native Americans, push them away, keep them in controlled environments, completely subjugated, while forcing them to cede nearly all of their lands, at the most minimal of prices, keeping them forever subservient to and dependent upon their white "masters."

Useful for academic and recreational archaeologists alike, this book identifies and describes more than 200 projectile points and stone tools used by prehistoric Native American Indians in Texas. The authors also demonstrate how factors such as environment, locale, and type of artifact combine to produce a portrait of theses ancient cultures.

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.

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."