True Native American

Deep Conviction features four ordinary Americans who put their reputations and livelihoods at risk as they fought to protect their first amendment right to live their personal beliefs. Though these individuals couldn’t be more different, they share a similar conviction and determination, and the principles of religious freedom apply equally to all of them.

American schoolchildren have long been taught that their country was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus in 1492. But the history of Native Americans in the United States goes back tens of tens of thousands of years prior to Columbus’s and other colonizers’ arrivals. So, what’s the true history? Indigenous America introduces and amplifies the oral and written histories that have long been left out of American history books.

Mary Barber was born in Massachusetts and married Sioux chief Squatting Bear in 1867. In her memoirs, she described her experiences with the Sioux and the many relations of Squatting Bear.

Comanche: A warrior race of people with a history longer than sand has passed through the hourglass of time. The nation's economy, like that of other Plains Indian tribes, was based primarily on the buffalo; they were hunters and warriors of the first degree. They warred with everyone. By the middle of the 18th century, they had taken up horse breeding and had herds numbering in the thousands. Their name, given to them by the Ute Indians from their word komantsi, which means enemy.