An Afro-Indigenous history of the United States by Kyle T. Mays The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled for freedom, sometimes together, and sometimes apart. Whether to end African enslavement and Indigenous removal or eradicate capitalism and colonialism, Mays show how the fervor of Black and Indigenous peoples calls for justice have consistently sought to uproot white supremacy. Mays uses a wide-array of historical activists and pop culture icons, "sacred" texts, and foundational texts like the Declaration of Independence and Democracy in America. He covers the civil rights movement and freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, and explores current debates around the use of Native American imagery and the cultural appropriation of Black culture. Mays compels us to rethink both our history as well as contemporary debates and to imagine the powerful possibilities of Afro-Indigenous solidarity. Includes an 8-page photo insert featuring Kwame Ture with Dennis Banks and Russell Means at the Wounded Knee Trials; Angela Davis walking with Oren Lyons after he leaves Wounded Knee, SD; former South African president Nelson Mandela with Clyde Bellecourt; and more.

Black Elk: the life of an American visionary by Joe Jackson Winner of the Society of American Historians' Francis Parkman Prize Winner of the PEN / Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Best Biography of 2016, True West magazine Winner of the Western Writers of America 2017 Spur Award, Best Western Biography Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography Long-listed for the Cundill History Prize One of the Best Books of 2016, The Boston Globe The epic life story of the Native American holy man who has inspired millions around the world Black Elk, the Native American holy man, is known to millions of readers around the world from his 1932 testimonial Black Elk Speaks. Adapted by the poet John G. Neihardt from a series of interviews with Black Elk and other elders at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Black Elk Speaks is one of the most widely read and admired works of American Indian literature. Cryptic and deeply personal, it has been read as a spiritual guide, a philosophical manifesto, and a text to be deconstructed--while the historical Black Elk has faded from view. In this sweeping book, Joe Jackson provides the definitive biographical account of a figure whose dramatic life converged with some of the most momentous events in the history of the American West. Born in an era of rising violence between the Sioux, white settlers, and U.S. government troops, Black Elk killed his first man at the Little Bighorn, witnessed the death of his second cousin Crazy Horse, and traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Upon his return, he was swept up in the traditionalist Ghost Dance movement and shaken by the Massacre at Wounded Knee. But Black Elk was not a warrior, instead accepting the path of a healer and holy man, motivated by a powerful prophetic vision that he struggled to understand. Although Black Elk embraced Catholicism in his later years, he continued to practice the old ways clandestinely and never refrained from seeking meaning in the visions that both haunted and inspired him. In Black Elk, Jackson has crafted a true American epic, restoring to its subject the richness of his times and gorgeously portraying a life of heroism and tragedy, adaptation and endurance, in an era of permanent crisis on the Great Plains.

Blasphemy: new and selected stories by Sherman Alexie Sherman Alexie's stature as a writer of stories, poems, and novels has soared over the course of his twenty-book, twenty-year career. His wide-ranging, acclaimed stories from the last two decades, from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven to his most recent PEN/Faulkner award-winning War Dances, have established him as a star in modern literature. A bold and irreverent observer of life among Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, the daring, versatile, funny, and outrageous Alexie showcases all his talents in his newest collection, Blasphemy, where he unites fifteen beloved classics with fifteen new stories in one sweeping anthology for devoted fans and first-time readers. Included here are some of his most esteemed tales, including "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona," "The Toughest Indian in the World," and "War Dances." Alexie's new stories are fresh and quintessential--about donkey basketball leagues, lethal wind turbines, the reservation, marriage, and all species of contemporary American warriors. An indispensable collection of new and classic stories, Blasphemy reminds us, on every thrilling page, why Sherman Alexie is one of our greatest contemporary writers and a true master of the short story.

Braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller A Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub A Book Riot "Favorite Summer Read of 2020" A Food Tank Fall 2020 Reading Recommendation Updated with a new introduction from Robin Wall Kimmerer, the special edition of Braiding Sweetgrass, reissued in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Milkweed Editions, celebrates the book as an object of meaning that will last the ages. Beautifully bound with a new cover featuring an engraving by Tony Drehfal, this edition includes a bookmark ribbon and five brilliantly colored illustrations by artist Nate Christopherson. In increasingly dark times, we honor the experience that more than 350,000 readers in North America have cherished about the book--gentle, simple, tactile, beautiful, even sacred--and offer an edition that will inspire readers to gift it again and again, spreading the word about scientific knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and the teachings of plants. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings--asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass--offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Cherokee women in charge: female power and leadership in American Indian nations of eastern North America by Karen Coody Cooper Cherokee women wielded significant power, and history demonstrates that in what is now America, indigenous women often bore the greater workload, both inside and outside the home. During the French and Indian War, Cherokee women resisted a chief's authority, owned family households, were skilled artisans, produced plentiful crops, mastered trade negotiations, and prepared chiefs' feasts. Cherokee culture was lost when the Cherokee Nation began imitating the American form of governance to gain political favor, and white colonists reduced indigenous women's power. This book recounts long-standing Cherokee traditions and their rich histories. It demonstrates Cherokee and indigenous women as independent and strong individuals through feminist and historical perspectives. Readers will find that these women were far ahead of their time and held their own in many remarkable ways.

Conversations with remarkable Native Americans by Joëlle Rostkowski In these lively and informative interviews, noted ethnohistorian and international consultant Joëlle Rostkowski brings to light major developments in the Native American experience over the last thirty years. Overcoming hardships they have experienced as the "forgotten" minority, often torn between two cultures, these prominent native writers, artists, journalists, activists, lawyers, and museum administrators each have made remarkable contributions towards the transformation of old stereotypes, the fight against discrimination, and the sharing of their heritage with mainstream society. Theirs is a story not so much of success but of resilience, of survivance, with each interview subject having marked their time and eventually becoming the change they wanted in the world. The conversations in this volume reveal that the assertion of ethnic identity does not lead to bitterness and isolation, but rather an enthusiasm and drive toward greater visibility and recognition that at the same time aims at a greater understanding between different cultures. Conversations with Remarkable Native Americans rewards the reader with a deeper understanding of the Native American Renaissance.

Dakota women's work: creativity, culture, and exile by Colette A. Hyman A tiny pair of beaded deerskin moccasins, given to a baby in 1913, provides the starting point for this thoughtful examination of the work of Dakota women. Mary Eastman Faribault, born in Minnesota, made them almost four decades after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. This and other ornately decorated objects created by Dakota women--cradleboards, clothing, animal skin containers--served more than a utilitarian function. They tell the story of colonization, genocide, and survival. Author Colette Hyman traces the changes in the lives of Dakota women, starting before the arrival of whites and covering the fur trade, the years of treaties and shrinking lands, the brutal time of removal, starvation, and shattered families after 1862--and then the transition to reservation life, when missionaries and government agents worked to turn the Dakota into Christian farmers. The decorative work of Dakota women reflected all of this: native organic dyes and quillwork gave way to beading and needlework, items traditionally decorated for family gifts were produced to sell to tourists and white collectors, work on cradleboards and animal skin bags shifted to the ornamenting of hymnals and the creation of star quilts. Through it all, the work of Dakota women proclaims and retains Dakota identity: it is a testament to the endurance of Dakota traditions, to the survival of the Dakota in exile, and--most vividly--to the role of women in that survival. Colette A. Hyman teaches history and women's studies at Winona State University. She is the author of Staging Strikes: Workers' Theatre and the American Labor Movement.

For a love of his people: the photography of Horace Poolaw by Nancy Marie Mithlo (Editor); Smithsonian Institution (Other Primary Creator) For more than five decades of the twentieth century, one of the first American Indian professional photographers gave an insider's view of his Oklahoma community--a community rooted in its traditional culture while also thoroughly modern and quintessentially American Horace Poolaw (Kiowa, 1906-84) was born during a time of great change for his American Indian people as they balanced age-old traditions with the influences of mainstream America. A rare American Indian photographer who documented Indian subjects, Poolaw began making a visual history in the mid-1920s and continued for the next fifty years. When he sold his photos, he often stamped the reverse: "A Poolaw Photo, Pictures by an Indian, Horace M. Poolaw, Anadarko, Okla." Not simply by "an Indian," but by a Kiowa man strongly rooted in his multi-tribal community, Poolaw's work celebrates his subjects' place in American life and preserves an insider's perspective on a world few outsiders are familiar with--the Native America of the southern plains during the mid-twentieth century.   For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw is based on the Poolaw Photography Project, a research initiative established by Poolaw's daughter Linda in 1989 at Stanford University and carried on by Native scholars Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache) and Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     Distributed for the National Museum of the American Indian

An indigenous peoples' history of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz New York Times Bestseller Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples   Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire. With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them."   Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.

Native Americans of New England by Christoph Strobel This book provides the first comprehensive, region-wide, long-term, and accessible study of Native Americans in New England.This work is a comprehensive and region-wide synthesis of the history of the indigenous peoples of the northeastern corner of what is now the United States--New England--which includes the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Native Americans of New England takes view of the history of indigenous peoples of the region, reconstructing this past from the earliest available archeological evidence to the present. It examines how historic processes shaped and reshaped the lives of Native peoples and uses case studies, historic sketches, and biographies to tell these stories. While this volume is aware of the impact that colonization, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and racism had on the lives of indigenous peoples in New England, it also focuses on Native American resistance, adaptation, and survival under often harsh and unfavorable circumstances.Native Americans of New England is structured into six chapters that examine the continuous presence of indigenous peoples in the region. The book emphasizes Native Americans' efforts to preserve the integrity and viability of their dynamic and self-directed societies and cultures in New England.

News media and the indigenous fight for federal recognition by Cristina Azocar Federal recognition enables tribes to govern themselves and make decisions for their citizens that have the power to retain their cultures. But over the last forty years, the news media coverage of the federal recognition of tribes has perpetuated ignorance and stereotypes about tribal sovereignty. This book examines how past coverage has prioritized gaming over sovereignty and interfered in Tribes' ability to be federally recognized. Scholars of journalism, mass communication, media studies, and indigenous studies will find this book of particular interest.

Officially Indian: symbols that define the United States by Cécile Ganteaume; Colin G. Calloway (Foreword by); Paul Chaat Smith (Afterword by) From maps, monuments, and architectural features to stamps and currency, images of Native Americans have been used again and again on visual expressions of American national identity since before the country's founding. In the first in-depth study of this extraordinary archive, Cécile R. Ganteaume argues that these representations are not empty symbols but reflect how official and semi-official government institutions--from the U.S. Army and the Department of the Treasury to the patriotic fraternal society Sons of Liberty--have attempted to define what the country stands for. Seen collectively and studied in detail, American Indian imagery on a wide range of emblems--almost invariably distorted and bearing little relation to the reality of Native American-U.S. government relations--sheds light on the United States' evolving sense of itself as a democratic nation.  Generation after generation, Americans have needed to define anew their relationship with American Indians, whose lands they usurped and whom they long regarded as fundamentally different from themselves. Such images as a Plains Indian buffalo hunter on the 1898 four-cent stamp and Sequoyah's likeness etched into glass doors at the Library of Congress in 2013 reveal how deeply rooted American Indians are in U.S. national identity. While the meanings embedded in these artifacts can be paradoxical, counterintuitive, and contradictory to their eras' prevailing attitudes toward actual American Indians, Ganteaume shows how the imagery has been crucial to the ongoing national debate over what it means to be an American.   Officially Indian is published in concert with the Americans exhibition, which opens October 26, 2017, at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. American Indians represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, yet names and images of Indians are everywhere: military weapons, songs, town names, advertising, and that holiday in November. Americans invites visitors to take a closer look, and to ask why. Featuring nearly 350 objects and images, from a Tomahawk missile to baking powder cans, Americans examines the staying power of four stories (Thanksgiving, Pocahontas, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn) that are woven into the fabric of both American history and contemporary life. By highlighting what has been remembered, contested, cherished, and denied about these stories, and why they continue to resonate, this exhibition shows that Americans have always been fascinated, conflicted, and profoundly shaped by their relationship to American Indians.

Origin: a genetic history of the Americas by Jennifer Raff AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story--and fascinating mystery--of how humans migrated to the Americas. ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution. 20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records--and scant archaeological evidence--exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed.   A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"

Our beloved kin: a new history of King Philip's War by Lisa Brooks Winner of the 2019 Bancroft Prize: A compelling and original recovery of Native American resistance and adaptation to colonial America "By making what we thought was a small story very large indeed--Ms. Brooks really does give us 'A New History of King Philip's War.'"--The Wall Street Journal "Provides a wealth of information for both scholars and lay readers interested in Native American history."--Publishers Weekly With rigorous original scholarship and creative narration, Lisa Brooks recovers a complex picture of war, captivity, and Native resistance during the "First Indian War" (later named King Philip's War) by relaying the stories of Weetamoo, a female Wampanoag leader, and James Printer, a Nipmuc scholar, whose stories converge in the captivity of Mary Rowlandson. Through both a narrow focus on Weetamoo, Printer, and their network of relations, and a far broader scope that includes vast Indigenous geographies, Brooks leads us to a new understanding of the history of colonial New England and of American origins. Brooks's pathbreaking scholarship is grounded not just in extensive archival research but also in the land and communities of Native New England, reading the actions of actors during the seventeenth century alongside an analysis of the landscape and interpretations informed by tribal history.

The people who stayed: southeastern Indian writing after removal by Geary Hobson (Editor); Janet McAdams (Editor); Kathryn Walkiewicz (Editor) The two-hundred-year-old myth of the "vanishing" American Indian still holds some credence in the American Southeast, the region from which tens of thousands of Indians were relocated after passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Yet, as the editors of this volume amply demonstrate, a significant Indian population remained behind after those massive relocations. The first anthology to focus on the literary work of Native Americans who trace their  ancestry to "people who stayed" in southeastern states after 1830, this volume represents every state and every genre, including short stories, excerpts from novels, poetry, essays, plays, and even Web postings. Although most works are contemporary, the collection covers the entire post-Removal era. Some of the contributors are well known, while others have only recently emerged as important literary voices. All of the writers in The People Who Stayed affirm their Indian ancestry, though many live outside the Southeast today. As this anthology demonstrates, indigenous Southeastern writing engages the local and the global, the traditional and the modern. While many speak to the prospects and perils of acculturation, all the writers bear witness to the ways, oblique or straightforward, that they and their families continue to honor their Indian identities despite the legacy of removal. In an introduction to the volume and in headnotes on each contributor, the editors provide historical context and literary insight on the diversity of writing and lived experiences found in these pages. All readers, from students to scholars, will gain newfound understanding of the literature -- and the human experience -- of Native people of the American Southeast.

Plundered skulls and stolen spirits: inside the fight to reclaim native America's culture by Chip Colwell Who owns the past and the objects that physically connect us to history? And who has the right to decide this ownership, particularly when the objects are sacred or, in the case of skeletal remains, human? Is it the museums that care for the objects or the communities whose ancestors made them? These questions are at the heart of Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits, an unflinching insider account by a leading curator who has spent years learning how to balance these controversial considerations. Five decades ago, Native American leaders launched a crusade to force museums to return their sacred objects and allow them to rebury their kin. Today, hundreds of tribes use the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to help them recover their looted heritage from museums across the country. As senior curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Chip Colwell has navigated firsthand the questions of how to weigh the religious freedom of Native Americans against the academic freedom of scientists and whether the emptying of museum shelves elevates human rights or destroys a common heritage. This book offers his personal account of the process of repatriation, following the trail of four objects as they were created, collected, and ultimately returned to their sources: a sculpture that is a living god, the scalp of a massacre victim, a ceremonial blanket, and a skeleton from a tribe considered by some to be extinct. These specific stories reveal a dramatic process that involves not merely obeying the law, but negotiating the blurry lines between identity and morality, spirituality and politics. Things, like people, have biographies. Repatriation, Colwell argues, is a difficult but vitally important way for museums and tribes to acknowledge that fact--and heal the wounds of the past while creating a respectful approach to caring for these rich artifacts of history.  

Postcolonial love poem by Natalie Diaz WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN POETRY FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY Natalie Diaz's highly anticipated follow-up to When My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American Book Award Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz's brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages--bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers--be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness: "Let me call my anxiety, desire, then. / Let me call it, a garden." In this new lyrical landscape, the bodies of indigenous, Latinx, black, and brown women are simultaneously the body politic and the body ecstatic. In claiming this autonomy of desire, language is pushed to its dark edges, the astonishing dunefields and forests where pleasure and love are both grief and joy, violence and sensuality. Diaz defies the conditions from which she writes, a nation whose creation predicated the diminishment and ultimate erasure of bodies like hers and the people she loves: "I am doing my best to not become a museum / of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out. // I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible." Postcolonial Love Poem unravels notions of American goodness and creates something more powerful than hope--in it, a future is built, future being a matrix of the choices we make now, and in these poems, Diaz chooses love.

Project 562: changing the way we see Native America by Matika Wilbur NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes. "This book is too important to miss. It is a vast, sprawling look at who we are as Indigenous people in these United States."-Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho), author of There There In 2012, Matika Wilbur sold everything in her Seattle apartment and set out on a Kickstarter-funded pursuit to visit, engage, and photograph people from what were then the 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations. Over the next decade, she traveled six hundred thousand miles across fifty states-from Seminole country (now known as the Everglades) to Inuit territory (now known as the Bering Sea)-to meet, interview, and photograph hundreds of Indigenous people. The body of work Wilbur created serves to counteract the one-dimensional and archaic stereotypes of Native people in mainstream media and offers justice to the richness, diversity, and lived experiences of Indian Country. The culmination of this decade-long art and storytelling endeavor, Project 562 is a peerless, sweeping, and moving love letter to Indigenous Americans, containing hundreds of stunning portraits and compelling personal narratives of contemporary Native people-all photographed in clothing, poses, and locations of their choosing. Their narratives touch on personal and cultural identity as well as issues of media representation, sovereignty, faith, family, the protection of sacred sites, subsistence living, traditional knowledge-keeping, land stewardship, language preservation, advocacy, education, the arts, and more. A vital contribution from an incomparable artist, Project 562 inspires, educates, and truly changes the way we see Native America.

Shapes of Native nonfiction: collected essays by contemporary writers by Theresa Warburton For many the phrase "Native nonfiction" inspires thoughts of the past, of timeless oral history transcriptions and dry 19th century autobiographies. In Shapes of Native Nonfiction, Washuta and Warburton explode this perspective by showcasing 22 contemporary Native writers and their provocative approaches to form. While exploring familiar legacies of personal and collective trauma and violence, these writers push, pull and break the conventional essay structure to overhaul the dominant cultural narrative that romanticize Native lives, yet deny Native emotional response. Organized into four sections inspired by different aspects of and strategies for basket weaving (Technique, Coiling, Plaiting, Twining) the essays presented here demonstrate how Native writers manipulate the shape of creative nonfiction to offer incisive observations, critiques and commentary on our political, social and cultural world. The result is an engaging anthology that introduces a variety of audiences to the true range of Native nonfiction work.

There There by Tommy Orange PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. A contemporary classic, this "astonishing literary debut" (Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale) "places Native American voices front and center" (NPR/Fresh Air). Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. They converge and collide on one fateful day at the Big Oakland Powwow and together this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism A book with "so much jangling energy and brings so much news from a distinct corner of American life that it's a revelation" (The New York Times). It is fierce, funny, suspenseful, and impossible to put down--full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.

This Indian country: American Indian political activists and the place they made by Frederick Hoxie Frederick E. Hoxie, one of our most prominent and celebrated academic historians of Native American history, has for years asked his undergraduate students at the beginning of each semester to write down the names of three American Indians. Almost without exception, year after year, the names are Geronimo, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The general conclusion is inescapable: Most Americans instinctively view Indians as people of the past who occupy a position outside the central narrative of American history. These three individuals were warriors, men who fought violently against American expansion, lost, and died. It's taken as given that Native history has no particular relationship to what is conventionally presented as the story of America. Indians had a history too; but theirs was short and sad, and it ended a long time ago.  In This Indian Country, Hoxie has created a bold and sweeping counter-narrative to our conventional understanding. Native American history, he argues, is also a story of political activism, its victories hard-won in courts and campaigns rather than on the battlefield. For more than two hundred years, Indian activists--some famous, many unknown beyond their own communities--have sought to bridge the distance between indigenous cultures and the republican democracy of the United States through legal and political debate. Over time their struggle defined a new language of "Indian rights" and created a vision of American Indian identity. In the process, they entered a dialogue with other activist movements, from African American civil rights to women's rights and other progressive organizations. Hoxie weaves a powerful narrative that connects the individual to the tribe, the tribe to the nation, and the nation to broader historical processes. He asks readers to think deeply about how a country based on the values of liberty and equality managed to adapt to the complex cultural and political demands of people who refused to be overrun or ignored. As we grapple with contemporary challenges to national institutions, from inside and outside our borders, and as we reflect on the array of shifting national and cultural identities across the globe, This Indian Country provides a context and a language for understanding our present dilemmas.

Unworthy republic: the dispossession of Native Americans and the road to Indian territory by Claudio Saunt In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington's small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government's auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence. Unworthy Republic reveals how expulsion became national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women, and children.Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt's deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in U.S. expansion across the continent. Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought relentlessly against the policy, while many U.S. citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation's values. When Congress passed the act by a razor-thin margin, it authorized one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in the modern era, marking a turning point for native peoples and for the United States.In telling this gripping story, Saunt shows how the politics and economics of white supremacy lay at the heart of the expulsion of Native Americans; how corruption, greed, and administrative indifference and incompetence contributed to the debacle of its implementation; and how the consequences still resonate today.

Voices from four directions: contemporary translations of the Native literatures of North America by Brian Swann Storytelling and singing continue to be a vital part of community life for Native peoples today. Voices from Four Directions gathers stories and songs from thirty-one Native groups in North America -- including the Inupiaqs in the frigid North, the Lushootseeds along the forested coastline of the far West, the Catawbas in the humid South, and the Maliseets of the rugged woods of the East. Vivid stories of cosmological origins and transformation, historical events remembered and retold, as well as legendary fables can be found in these pages. Well-known Trickster figures like Raven, Rabbit, and Coyote figure prominently in several tales as do heroes of local fame such as Tom Laporte of the Maliseets. The stories and songs entertain, instruct, and recall rich legacies as well as obligations. Many are retellings and reinventions of classic narratives, while others are more recent creations. Award-winning poet and critic Brian Swann has gathered some of the richest and most diverse literatures of Native North America and provides an introduction to the volume. In addition, each story is introduced and newly translated.

Whereas: poems by Layli Long Soldier Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces? Until a friend comforted, Don't worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father's language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics. --from "WHEREAS Statements" WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. "I am," she writes, "a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation--and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live." This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.

Why indigenous literatures matter by Daniel Heath Justice Winner, PROSE Awards 2019 Short-listed, ACQL Gabrielle Roy Prize for Literary Criticism 2018 Winner, NAISA Award Best Subsequent Book 2018 Part survey of the field of Indigenous literary studies, part cultural history, and part literary polemic, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter asserts the vital significance of literary expression to the political, creative, and intellectual efforts of Indigenous peoples today. In considering the connections between literature and lived experience, this book contemplates four key questions at the heart of Indigenous kinship traditions: How do we learn to be human? How do we become good relatives? How do we become good ancestors? How do we learn to live together? Blending personal narrative and broader historical and cultural analysis with close readings of key creative and critical texts, Justice argues that Indigenous writers engage with these questions in part to challenge settler-colonial policies and practices that have targeted Indigenous connections to land, history, family, and self. More importantly, Indigenous writers imaginatively engage the many ways that communities and individuals have sought to nurture these relationships and project them into the future. This provocative volume challenges readers to critically consider and rethink their assumptions about Indigenous literature, history, and politics while never forgetting the emotional connections of our shared humanity and the power of story to effect personal and social change. Written with a generalist reader firmly in mind but addressing issues of interest to specialists in the field, this book welcomes new audiences to Indigenous literary studies while offering more seasoned readers a renewed appreciation for these transformative literary traditions. Selected as an Equity, Justice, and Inclusion Community Read by the Association of University Presses.

Yellow dirt: an American story of a poisoned land and a people betrayed by Judy Pasternak WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD   Atop a craggy mesa in the northern reaches of the Navajo reservation lies what was once a world-class uranium mine called Monument No. 2. Discovered in the 1940s--during the government's desperate press to build nuclear weapons--the mesa's tremendous lode would forever change the lives of the hundreds of Native Americans who labored there and of their families, including many who dwelled in the valley below for generations afterward. Yellow Dirt offers readers a window into a dark chapter of modern history that still reverberates today. From the 1940s into the early twenty-first century, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe for the sake of atomic bombs. Secretly, during the days of the Manhattan Project and then in a frenzy during the Cold War, the government bought up all the uranium that could be mined from the hundreds of rich deposits entombed under the sagebrush plains and sandstone cliffs. Despite warnings from physicians and scientists that long-term exposure could be harmful, even fatal, thousands of miners would work there unprotected. A second set of warnings emerged about the environmental impact. Yet even now, long after the uranium boom ended, and long after national security could be cited as a consideration, many residents are still surrounded by contaminated air, water, and soil. The radioactive "yellow dirt" has ended up in their drinking supplies, in their walls and floors, in their playgrounds, in their bread ovens, in their churches, and even in their garbage dumps. And they are still dying. Transporting readers into a little-known country-within-a-country, award-winning journalist Judy Pasternak gives rare voice to Navajo perceptions of the world, their own complicated involvement with uranium mining, and their political coming-of-age. Along the way, their fates intertwine with decisions made in Washington, D.C., in the Navajo capital of Window Rock, and in the Western border towns where swashbuckling mining men trained their sights on the fortunes they could wrest from tribal land, successfully pressuring the government into letting them do it their way. Yellow Dirt powerfully chronicles both a scandal of neglect and the Navajos' long fight for justice. Few had heard of this shameful legacy until Pasternak revealed it in a prize-winning Los Angeles Times series that galvanized a powerful congressman and a famous prosecutor to press for redress and repair of the grievous damage. In this expanded account, she provides gripping new details, weaving the personal and the political into a tale of betrayal, of willful negligence, and, ultimately, of reckoning.