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Native American Heritage Month

Read works by and about Native American/Indigenous Peoples here at Kishwaukee College Library!

New books!

The Fairbanks Four : murder, injustice, and the birth of a movement

One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice. October, 1997. Late one night in Fairbanks, Alaska, a passerby finds a teenager unconscious, collapsed on the edge of the road, beaten nearly beyond recognition. Two days later, he dies in the hospital. His name is John Gilbert Hartman and he's just turned 15 years old. The police quickly arrest four suspects, all under the age of 21 and of Alaska Native and American Indian descent. Police lineup witnesses, trials follow, and all four men receive lengthy prison terms. Case closed.  But journalist Brian Patrick O'Donoghue can't put the story out of his mind. When the opportunity arises to teach a class on investigative reporting, he finally digs into what happened to the "Fairbanks Four." A relentless search for the truth ensues as O'Donoghue and his students uncover the lies, deceit, and prejudice that put four innocent young men in jail. The Fairbanks Four is the gripping story of a brutal crime and its sprawling aftermath in the frigid Alaska landscape. It's a story of collective action as one journalist, his students, and the Fairbanks indigenous community challenge the verdicts. It's the story of a broken justice system, and the effort required to keep hope alive. This is the story of the Fairbanks Four.

America, América : a new history of the new world

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both The story of how the United States' identity was formed is almost invariably told by looking east to Europe. But as Greg Grandin vividly demonstrates, the nation's unique sense of itself was in fact forged facing south toward Latin America. In turn, Latin America developed its own identity in struggle with the looming colossus to the north. In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Grandin reveals how North and South emerged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other. America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest--the greatest mortality event in human history--through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond. Grandin shows, among other things, how in response to U.S. interventions, Latin Americans remade the rules, leading directly to the founding of the United Nations; and how the Good Neighbor Policy allowed FDR to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism. Grandin's book sheds new light on well-known historical figures like Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar, and Woodrow Wilson, as well as lesser-known actors such as the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who almost lost his head in the French Revolution and conspired with Alexander Hamilton to free America from Spain; the Colombian Jorge Gaitán, whose unsolved murder inaugurated the rise of Cold War political terror, death squads, and disappearances; and the radical journalist Ernest Gruening, who, in championing non-interventionism in Latin America, helped broker the most spectacularly successful policy reversal in United States history. This is a monumental work of scholarship that will fundamentally change the way we think of Spanish and English colonialism, slavery and racism, and the rise of universal humanism. At once comprehensive and accessible, America, América shows that centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy not only helped shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world. In so doing, Grandin argues that Latin America's deeply held culture of social democracy can be an effective counterweight to today's spreading rightwing authoritarianism. A culmination of a decades-long engagement with hemispheric history, drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World.

Turning the Power : Indian boarding schools, Native American anthropologists, and the race to preserve Indigenous cultures

In Turning the Power Nathan Sowry examines how some Native American students from the boarding school system, with its forced assimilationist education, became key cultural informants for anthropologists conducting fieldwork during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Salvage anthropologists of this era relied on Native informants to accomplish their mission of "saving" Native American cultures and ultimately turned many informants into anthropologists after years of fieldwork experience. Sowry investigates ten relatively unknown Native American anthropologists and collaborators who, from 1878 to 1930, attended a religiously affiliated mission school, a federal Indian boarding school, or both. He tells the stories of Native anthropologists Tichkematse, William Jones, and James R. Murie, who were alumni of the Hampton Institute in Virginia. Richard Davis and Cleaver Warden were among the first and second classes to attend the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Amos Oneroad graduated from the Haskell Indian Industrial Training School in Lawrence, Kansas, after attending mission and boarding schools in South Dakota. D. C. Duvall, John V. Satterlee, and Florence and Louis Shotridge attended smaller boarding and mission schools in Montana, Wisconsin, and Alaska Territory, respectively. Turning the Power follows the forced indoctrination of Native American students and then details how each of them "turned the power," using their English knowledge and work experience in the anthropological field to embrace, document, and preserve their Native cultures rather than abandoning their heritage.

Medicine River : a story of survival and the legacy of Indian boarding schools

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 From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools--sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation--were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection. Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember's own childhood and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.

Empires of the Dead: Inca mummies and the Peruvian ancestors of American anthropology

When the Smithsonian's Hall of Physical Anthropology opened in 1965 it featured 160 Andean skulls affixed to a wall to visualize how the world's human population had exploded since the birth of Christ. Through a history of Inca mummies, a pre-Hispanic surgery called trepanation, and Andean crania like these, Empires of the Dead explains how "ancient Peruvians" became the single largest population in the Smithsonian and many other museums in Peru, the Americas, and beyond. In 1532, when Spain invaded the Inca empire, Europeans learned that Inca and Andean peoples made their ancestors sacred by preserving them with the world's oldest practices of artificial mummification. To extinguish their power, the Spaniards collected these ancestors as specimens of conquest, science, nature, and race. Yet colonial Andean communities also found ways to keep the dead alive, making "Inca mummies" a symbol of resistance that Spanish American patriots used to introduce Peruvian Independence and science to the world. Inspired, nineteenth-century US anthropologists disinterred and collected Andean mummies and skulls to question the antiquity and civilization of the American "race" in publications, world's fairs, and US museums. Peruvian scholars then used those mummies and skulls to transform anthropology itself, curating these "scientific ancestors" as evidence of pre-Hispanic superiority in healing. Bringing together the history of science, race, and museums' possession of Indigenous remains, from the sixteenth century to the twentieth, Empires of the Dead illuminates how South American ancestors became coveted mummies, skulls, and specimens of knowledge and nationhood. In doing so it reveals how Peruvian and Andean peoples have learned from their dead, seeking the recovery of looted heritage in the centuries before North American museums began their own work of decolonization.

The Wars of the Lord

The epic, tragic story of the Puritan conquest of New England through the eyes of those who lived it Over several decades beginning in 1620, tens of thousands of devout English colonists known as Puritans came to America. They believed that bringing Christianity to the natives would liberate them from darkness. Daniel Gookin, Massachusetts's missionary superintendent, called such efforts a "war of the Lord," a war in which Christ would deliver captive souls from Satan's bondage. When Puritan soldiers slaughtered hundreds of indigenous men, women, and children at Fort Mystic in 1637, during the Pequot War, they believed they were doing God's will. The same was true during King Philip's War, perhaps the bloodiest war in American history. The Puritan clergyman Increase Mather described this conflict, too, as a "war of the Lord," a war in which God was judging the enemies of his people. Matthew J. Tuininga argues that these two "wars" are inextricably linked. Puritan Christianity, he shows, shaped both the spiritual and military conquests of New England from beginning to end. It is not only that the people who did these things happened to be Christians; it is that Christianity was the framework they used to guide, interpret, and defend every major act of peace or war. They made sincere efforts to treat Natives according to Christian principles of love and justice as they understood them, and their sustained missionary efforts demonstrate how serious they were about saving native souls. Yet they appealed to Christianity just as confidently when they subjugated, enslaved, or killed native peoples in the name of justice. A mission they saw as spiritual, peaceful, benevolent, and just devolved into a military conquest that was virtually genocidal. This book tells the story of how this happened from the perspective of those who lived it, both colonists and Native Americans.

Original Sins

If all children could just get an education, the logic goes, they would have the same opportunities later in life. But this historical tour de force makes it clear that the opposite is true: The U.S. school system has played an instrumental role in creating and upholding racial hierarchies, preparing children to expect unequal treatment throughout their lives. In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that our schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to "civilize" Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Education was not an afterthought for the Founding Fathers; it was envisioned by Thomas Jefferson as an institution that would fortify the country's racial hierarchy. Ewing argues that these dynamics persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. The most insidious aspects of this system fall below the radar in the forms of standardized testing, academic tracking, disciplinary policies, and uneven access to resources. By demonstrating that it's in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective and underacknowledged mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that we need a profound reevaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place we send our children for eight hours a day.

Indigenous Statistics : from data deficits to data sovereignty

This second edition of the groundbreaking Indigenous Statistics opens up a major new approach to research across the disciplines and applied fields. While qualitative methods have been rigorously critiqued and reformulated, the population statistics relied on by virtually all research on Indigenous Peoples continue to be taken for granted as straightforward, transparent numbers. Drawing on a diverse new author team, this book dismantles that persistent positivism with a forceful critique, then fills the void with a new paradigm for Indigenous quantitative methods using concrete examples of research projects from first world Indigenous Peoples in the United States, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada. Concise and accessible, it is an ideal supplementary text as well as a core component of the methodological toolkit for anyone conducting Indigenous research or using Indigenous population statistics. This is an essential text for students studying quantitative methods, statistics and research methods. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Licence (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Ancient South America

Ancient South America, 2nd edition features the full panorama of the South American past from the first inhabitants to the European invasions  Isolated for all of prehistory and much of history, the continent witnessed the rise of cultures and advanced civilizations rivalling those of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Independently of developments elsewhere, South American peoples invented agriculture, domesticated animals, and created pottery, elaborate architecture, and the arts of working metals. Tribes, chiefdoms, and immense conquest states rose, flourished, and disappeared, leaving only their ruined monuments and broken artifacts as testimonials to past greatness. This new edition is completely revised and updated to reflect archaeological discoveries and insights made in the past three decades. Incorporating new findings on northern and eastern lowlands, and discussions of the first civilizations, it also examines the first inhabitants of Brazil and Patagonia as well as the Andes. Accessibly written and abundantly illustration, the volume also includes chronological charts and new examples.

When We Sold God's Eye

The "gripping and astonishing story" (Douglas Preston) of the Cinta Larga, a tribe that had no contact with the West until the 1960s and came to run an illegal diamond mine in the Amazon.  Growing up in a remote corner of the world's largest rainforest, Pio, Maria, and Oita learned to hunt wild pigs and tapirs, and gathered Brazil nuts and açaí berries from centuries-old trees. The first highway pierced through in 1960. Ranchers, loggers, and prospectors invaded, and the kids lost their families to terrible new weapons and diseases. Pushed by the government to assimilate, they struggled to figure out their new, capitalist reality, discovering its wonders--cars, refrigerators, TV sets, phones--as well as a way to acquire them: by selling the natural riches of their own forest home. They had to partner with the white men who'd hunted them, but their wealth grew legendary, the envy of the nation--until decades of suppressed trauma erupted into a massacre, bloody retribution that made headlines across the globe. Based on six years of immersive reporting and research, When We Sold God's Eye tells a unique kind of adventure story, one that begins with a river journey by Theodore Roosevelt and ends with smugglers from New York City's Diamond District. It's a story of survival against all odds; of the temptations of wealth and the dream of prosperity; of an ecosystem threatened by our hunger for resources; of genocide and revenge. It's a tragedy as old as the first European encounters with Indigenous people, playing out in the present day. But most of all, it's the moving saga of a few audacious individuals--Pio, Maria, Oita, and their friends--and their attempts to adapt and even thrive in the most unlikely circumstances.

Hard Neighbors

An intricate portrayal of the early American settlers who came to be known as Scotch-Irish, who through collusion and bloody conflict acted as the tip of the spear for white colonial expansion into Indian lands, embodying what became the American pioneer spirit. Hard Neighbors highlights stories that have been subsumed by terms such as "English settlers" and "American expansion" and traces shifting relationships involving Scotch-Irish people living on the frontier, neighboring Indian peoples, and more distant governments. It follows the people who came to be known as Scotch-Irish from their genesis on a colonial borderland on one side of the Atlantic to their role in the borderlands of Indian country on the other. It traces their relations with Native Americans over time and across the continent, examines their experiences as marginalized and expendable people living between colonial powers and Indigenous peoples, and demonstrates their roles as protective and disruptive forces on the hard edge of colonialism. The Scotch-Irish fought Indian wars and shaped the frontier, and their experiences living near and fighting against Indians shaped their identity and their attitudes towards government. They influenced national attitudes and policies, and they transformed Indian people into racial others as they transformed themselves into Americans. The story this book tells is less about the Scotch-Irish as a distinct ethnic group than as a people in motion who, in collusion and conflict with colonial authorities, repeatedly inserted themselves on Native land. Instead of a tale of unified westward expansion, it recovers the experiences, encounters, and humanity of groups of people enmeshed in the violence of colonialism and reconstructs the roles of multiple peoples placed as buffers between competing powers. Expansion, and the accompanying expulsion and killing of Indian people, helped to create American unity and identity and, ultimately, made the Scotch-Irish Americans. Once marginalized as little better than Indians, they reaffirmed their reputation as Indian killers and made a place for themselves in America, as Americans.

We Are Water Protectors

From author Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Michaela Goade comes a New York Times bestselling and Caldecott Medal winning picture book that honors Indigenous-led movements across the world. Powerfully written and gorgeously illustrated, We Are Water Protectors, issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth's water from harm and corruption--inviting young readers everywhere to join the fight. Water is the first medicine. It affects and connects us all . . . When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth And poison her people's water, one young water protector Takes a stand to defend Earth's most sacred resource. The fight continues with Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior, the must-read companion book to We Are Water Protectors. Written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Bridget George, it tells the story of real-life water protectors, Autumn Peltier and her great-aunt Josephine Mandamin, two Indigenous Rights Activists who have inspired a tidal wave of change.

Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon : Laura Gilpin, queerness, and Navajo sovereignty

What are the limits of political solidarity, and how can visual culture contribute to social change? A fundamental dilemma exists in documentary photography: can white artists successfully portray Indigenous lives and communities in a manner that neither appropriates nor romanticizes them? With an attentive and sensitive eye, Louise Siddons examines lesbian photographer Laura Gilpin''s classic 1968 book The Enduring Navaho to illuminate the intersectional politics of photography, Navajo sovereignty, and queerness over the course of the twentieth century.   Gilpin was a New York-trained fine arts photographer who started working with Navajo people when her partner accepted a job as a nurse in Arizona. She spent more than three decades documenting Navajo life and creating her book in collaboration with Navajo friends and colleagues. Framing her lesbian identity and her long relationship with the Navajo people around questions of allyship, Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon addresses the long and problematic history of White photographers capturing images of Native life. Simultaneously, Siddons uses Gilpin''s work to explore the limitations of White advocacy in a political moment that emphasized the need for Indigenous visibility and voices.   Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon introduces contemporary Diné (Navajo) artists as interlocutors, critics, and activists whose work embodies and extends the cultural sovereignty politics of earlier generations and makes visible the queerness often left implicit in Gilpin''s photographs. Siddons puts their work in conversation with Gilpin''s, taking up her mandate to viewers and readers of The Enduring Navajo to address Navajo aesthetics, traditions, politics, and people on their own terms.     Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions. rong Weapon addresses the long and problematic history of White photographers capturing images of Native life. Simultaneously, Siddons uses Gilpin''s work to explore the limitations of White advocacy in a political moment that emphasized the need for Indigenous visibility and voices.   Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon introduces contemporary Diné (Navajo) artists as interlocutors, critics, and activists whose work embodies and extends the cultural sovereignty politics of earlier generations and makes visible the queerness often left implicit in Gilpin''s photographs. Siddons puts their work in conversation with Gilpin''s, taking up her mandate to viewers and readers of The Enduring Navajo to address Navajo aesthetics, traditions, politics, and people on their own terms.     Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions. rong Weapon addresses the long and problematic history of White photographers capturing images of Native life. Simultaneously, Siddons uses Gilpin''s work to explore the limitations of White advocacy in a political moment that emphasized the need for Indigenous visibility and voices.   Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon introduces contemporary Diné (Navajo) artists as interlocutors, critics, and activists whose work embodies and extends the cultural sovereignty politics of earlier generations and makes visible the queerness often left implicit in Gilpin''s photographs. Siddons puts their work in conversation with Gilpin''s, taking up her mandate to viewers and readers of The Enduring Navajo to address Navajo aesthetics, traditions, politics, and people on their own terms.     Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions. rong Weapon addresses the long and problematic history of White photographers capturing images of Native life. Simultaneously, Siddons uses Gilpin''s work to explore the limitations of White advocacy in a political moment that emphasized the need for Indigenous visibility and voices.   Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon introduces contemporary Diné (Navajo) artists as interlocutors, critics, and activists whose work embodies and extends the cultural sovereignty politics of earlier generations and makes visible the queerness often left implicit in Gilpin''s photographs. Siddons puts their work in conversation with Gilpin''s, taking up her mandate to viewers and readers of The Enduring Navajo to address Navajo aesthetics, traditions, politics, and people on their own terms.     Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions. I> addresses the long and problematic history of White photographers capturing images of Native life. Simultaneously, Siddons uses Gilpin''s work to explore the limitations of White advocacy in a political moment that emphasized the need for Indigenous visibility and voices.   Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon introduces contemporary Diné (Navajo) artists as interlocutors, critics, and activists whose work embodies and extends the cultural sovereignty politics of earlier generations and makes visible the queerness often left implicit in Gilpin''s photographs. Siddons puts their work in conversation with Gilpin''s, taking up her mandate to viewers and readers of The Enduring Navajo to address Navajo aesthetics, traditions, politics, and people on their own terms.     Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

A council of dolls

The long-awaited, profoundly moving, and unforgettable new novel from PEN Award–winning Native American author Mona Susan Power, spanning three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women from the 19 th century to the present day. From the mid-century metropolis of Chicago to the windswept ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, A Council of Dolls is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried.... Sissy, born 1961: Sissy's relationship with her beautiful and volatile mother is difficult, even dangerous, but her life is also filled with beautiful things, including a new Christmas present, a doll called Ethel. Ethel whispers advice and kindness in Sissy's ear, and in one especially terrifying moment, maybe even saves Sissy's life. Lillian, born 1925: Born in her ancestral lands in a time of terrible change, Lillian clings to her sister, Blanche, and her doll, Mae. When the sisters are forced to attend an "Indian school" far from their home, Blanche refuses to be cowed by the school's abusive nuns. But when tragedy strikes the sisters, the doll Mae finds her way to defend the girls. Cora, born 1888: Though she was born into the brutal legacy of the "Indian Wars," Cora isn't afraid of the white men who remove her to a school across the country to be "civilized." When teachers burn her beloved buckskin and beaded doll Winona, Cora discovers that the spirit of Winona may not be entirely lost... A modern masterpiece, A Council of Dolls is gorgeous, quietly devastating, and ultimately hopeful, shining a light on the echoing damage wrought by Indian boarding schools, and the historical massacres of Indigenous people. With stunning prose, Mona Susan Power weaves a spell of love and healing that comes alive on the page.

That the People Might Live : Native American literatures and Native American community

Loyalty to the community is the highest value in Native American cultures, argues Jace Weaver. In That the People Might Live, he explores a wide range of Native American literature from 1768 to the present, taking this sense of community as both a starting point and a lens. Weaver considers some of the best known Native American writers, such as Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, and Vine Deloria, as well as many others who are receiving critical attention here for the first time. He contends that the single thing that most defines these authors' writings, and makes them deserving of study.

The Plot Against Native America : the fatefal story of Native American boarding schools and the theft of tribal lands

The first narrative history revealing the entire story of the development, operation, and harmful legacy of the Native American boarding schools--and how our nation still has much to resolve before we can fully heal. When Europeans came to the Americas centuries ago, too many of them brought racism along with them. Even presidents such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson each had different takes on how to solve the "Indian Problem"--none of them beneficial for the Natives. In the early 1800s, the federal government and various church denominations devised the "Indian Boarding Schools," in which Native children were forced to give up their Native languages, clothes, and spiritual beliefs for a life of cultural assimilation. Many of the children were abused sexually--and a shocking number died of pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other diseases. Sizable graveyards were found at many of these boarding schools. In 2021, the mass graves of First Nations children were found at the remains of some Canadian boarding schools, and the Pope traveled to Canada to apologize. In May 2022, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland released the first installment of an investigation into Native American boarding schools in the United States. It was the tip of the iceberg. The findings were shocking: the investigation revealed that the boarding school system emphasized manual labor and vocational training, which failed to prepare indigenous students for life in a capitalist economy. Despite the plot against Native America, tribal cultures have endured and are now flourishing. Indigenous birth rates are higher than those of white communities. Tribal councils across Indian Country are building their own herds of bison. As the tribes rebuild and reinvigorate their culture, the Catholic Church in America is fading. Some thirty dioceses have declared bankruptcy because of lawsuits brought by the victims of the sexual predators among priests and nuns. Native Americans seeking reparations for lost land are looking directly at the Vatican.

Native Nations : a millennium in North America

Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed. A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread across North America. So, when Europeans showed up in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand--those having developed differently from their own--and whose power they often underestimated. For centuries afterward, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch--and influenced global markets--and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists. Power dynamics shifted after the American Revolution, but Indigenous people continued to command much of the continent's land and resources. Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa forged new alliances and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created institutions to assert their sovereignty on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory. In this important addition to the growing tradition of North American history centered on Indigenous nations, Kathleen DuVal shows how the definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant--and will continue far into the future. "An essential American history"--The Wall Street Journal

Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and Cancer

Although cancer survival has improved markedly in developed countries in recent decades, not all groups have benefited equally. In particular, Indigenous and Tribal peoples continue to have poorer cancer outcomes than their non-Indigenous counterparts. The available evidence suggests these disparities are linked to a complex combination of factors, including higher incidence of cancers associated with a high case fatality, later stage of diagnosis, reduced access to cancer treatment, and poorer overall health. Much research is underway to explore approaches to improving health system responses for Indigenous and Tribal peoples. A developing evidence base is supporting effective translation of knowledge into practice. This book offers a global perspective on this evidence base, written from Indigenous perspectives. This book is the first comprehensive publication to report on cancer incidence, mortality, prevalence, survival, and inequities for Indigenous and Tribal peoples globally, with the aim of enhancing global efforts to improve outcomes for these populations. Its content and approach are led by Indigenous researchers with international reputations in health and cancer research. Chapters provide important information and data to support Indigenous-specific, targeted cancer awareness and early detection campaigns. This book goes beyond a discussion of the issues and challenges in Indigenous health, with a strengths-based approach to discussing successful health interventions, research projects, research translation, and living well - both with and beyond cancer. This is an open access book.

Mining and Indigenous Livelihoods : rights, revenues, and resistance

This book maps the encounters between Indigenous Peoples and local communities with mining companies in various post-colonial contexts. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of mining and the extractive industries, sustainable development, natural resource management, and Indigenous Peoples.

Wilma Mankiller: Chief of the Cherokee Nation

Wilma Mankiller knew firsthand the hardships facing the Cherokee people in the mid-20th century. After growing up in poverty, she got involved in the Native American rights movement of the 1960s and resolved to fight for change. As the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, her hard work and determination improved health care, education, and living conditions for her tribe. Mankiller's legacy of compassion and dedication continues to inspire people in the American Indian community and beyond. Blue Delta Books(tm), a Hi-Lo Books(tm) biography series, tell the stories of people who have changed our world in profound ways. This series features a diverse group of people. Some are more well-known than others, but all deserve to be highlighted for the positive impact they have had. Each Blue Delta Book features full-color images on every page and tells the person's story from childhood throughout their life. These books are sure to inspire young teen readers. Each book is 48 pages long.

Deb Haaland : first Native American Cabinet secretary

In 2021, Deb Haaland made history as the first Indigenous cabinet secretary. Serving as Secretary of the Interior, Haaland has championed climate and the rights of Native peoples. Discover Haaland's early life, her political career, and more.

Rise Up! Indigenous music in North America

Music historian Craig Harris explores more than five hundred years of Indigenous history, religion, and cultural evolution in Rise Up! Indigenous Music in North America. More than powwow drums and wooden flutes, Indigenous music intersects with rock, blues, jazz, folk music, reggae, hip-hop, classical music, and more. Combining deep research with personal stories by nearly four dozen award-winning Indigenous musicians, Harris offers an eye-opening look at the growth of Indigenous music. Among a host of North America's most vital Indigenous musicians, the biographical narratives include new and well-established figures such as Mildred Bailey, Louis W. Ballard, Cody Blackbird, Donna Coane (Spirit of Thunderheart), Theresa "Bear" Fox, Robbie Robertson, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joanne Shenandoah, DJ Shub (Dan General), Maria Tallchief, John Trudell, and Fawn Wood.

Native American women and the burdens of Southern history

In 'Native American Women and the Burdens of Southern History,' Daniel Usner gives closer consideration to the experiences of Native American women over time to show how they both complicate and enrich our understanding of southern history and culture. Usner explores the dynamic role that Indigenous women in the South played in confronting sequential waves of colonization, European imperial invasion, plantation encroachment, and post-Civil War racialization, revealing that these events affected them in particular ways, and their means of adaptation and resistance likewise took distinct forms. Though long neglected, Indigenous women's history is increasing and improving, thanks primarily to specialized work on select individuals, places, and periods. While drawing attention to that scholarship, Usner's work uses original research to advance a new line of inquiry that focuses on Native American women's responses and initiatives across centuries. Usner especially emphasizes the deployment of a particular feature of material culture in the Lower Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coastal area of the South. Overall, his work underscores how central Indigenous women have been in struggles for Native American territory and sovereignty throughout southern history.

An Introduction to Mesoamerican Philosophy

The philosophy of Mesoamerica - the indigenous groups of precolonial North-Central America - is rich and varied but relatively little-known. In this ground-breaking book, Alexus McLeod introduces the philosophical traditions of the Maya, Nahua (Aztecs), Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and others, focussing in particular on their treatment of language, truth, time, creation, personhood, knowledge, and morality. His wide-ranging discussion includes important texts of world literature such as the K'iche Maya Popol Vuh and the Aztec Florentine Codex, as well as precolonial glyphic texts and imagery. This comprehensive and accessible book will give students, specialists and other interested readers an understanding of Mesoamerican philosophy and a sense of the current scholarship in the field.

Escaping Slavery : a documentary history of Native American runaways in British North America

Escaping Slavery is a documentary history of Native Americans in British North America. This study of indigenous peoples captures the lives of numerous individuals who refused to sacrifice their humanity in the face of the violent, changing landscapes of early America.