Best of
Native-American-History

1992

A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh


Allan W. Eckert - 1992
    "Compelling reading—an epic narrative history." —Publishers Weekly

American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World


David E. Stannard - 1992
    Army's massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s - the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as one hundred million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or white Americans went, the native people were caught between imported plagues and barbarous atrocities, typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their populations. What kind of people, he asks, do such horrendous things to others? His highly provocative answer: Christians. Digging deeply into ancient European and Christian attitudes toward sex, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the centuries-long genocide campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched - and in places continue to wage - against the New World's original inhabitants. Advancing a thesis that is sure to create muchcontroversy, Stannard contends that the perpetrators of the American Holocaust drew on the same ideological wellspring as did the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust. It is an ideology that remains dangerously alive today, he adds, and one that in recent years has surfaced in American justifications for large-scale military intervention in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. At once sweeping in scope and meticulously detailed, American Holocaust is a work of impassioned scholarship that is certain to ignite intense historical and moral debate.

Stolen Continents: 500 Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas


Ronald Wright - 1992
    This incisive single-volume report tells the stories of the conquest and survival of five great American cultures — Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee, and Iroquois. Through their eloquent words, we relive their strange, tragic experiences — including, in a new epilogue, incidents that bring us up to the twenty-first century.

Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man


Archie Fire Lame Deer - 1992
    Archie's compelling narrative recaptures his boyhood years under the tutelage of his medicine-man grandfather on a South Dakota farm. We follow him from Catholic school runaway to Army misfit, from bartender to boozer, from Hollywood stuntman to chief rattlesnake catcher of the state of South Dakota. And we exult with him when he comes home to the world of spirit.

The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions: A Comprehensive Guide to the Spiritual Traditions and Practices of North American Indians


Arlene B. Hirschfelder - 1992
    The volume features a foreword written by Walter R. Echo-Hawk, a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, whose legal experience includes cases involving religious freedom and reburial rights. This volume is available in paperback for the first time. Featuring more than 1,200 cross-referenced entries, this encyclopedia is a fascinating guide to the spiritual traditions of Native Americans in the United States and Canada, including coverage of beliefs about the afterlife, symbolism, creation myths, and vision quests; important ceremonies and dances; prominent American Indian religious figures; and events, legislation, and tribal court cases that have shaped the development of Native American religions. Reviews: Praise for the hardcover edition: "...recommended." -Booklist

The Jicarilla Apache Tribe: A History


Veronica E. Velarde Tiller - 1992
    Concentrating on the modern era, 1846-1970, Veronica Tiller, herself a Jicarilla Apache, tells of the tribe's economic adaptations and relations with the United States government.Originally published in 1983, this revised edition updates the account of the Jicarilla experience, documenting the significant economic, political, and cultural changes that have occurred as the tribe has exercised ever greater autonomy in recent years.

New Mexico, Rio Grande, and Other Essays


Tony Hillerman - 1992
    Renowned author Tony Hillerman's original essays written for "New Mexico" and "Rio Grande, " plus two new essays, are complemented by the extraordinary images of Muench and Reynolds.

The Wind Won't Know Me: A History of the Navajo-Hopi Dispute


Emily Benedek - 1992
    There Navajos are pitted against their Hopi neighbors--and against a United States government that has divided the land between the two tribes and then decreed that Indians living on the "wrong" side must move. With the narrative sweep and emotional veracity of a great novel, Emily Benedek recounts the tortuous progress of the Navajo-Hopi land dispute and portrays the lives it has consumed.

The Mohicans of Stockbridge


Patrick Frazier - 1992
    Yet little is actually known about the people themselves, despite legendary images fixed by James Fenimore Cooper. Now we have the first thoroughly researched and documented study of the Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Mohicans, and it reveals a story fully as interesting as any fiction and more meaningful.

The Chaco Anasazi: Sociopolitical Evolution in the Prehistoric Southwest


Lynne Sebastian - 1992
    From small-scale, simply organized, prehistoric Pueblo societies, a complex and socially differentiated political system emerged that has become known as the Chaco Phenomenon. This study combines information on political evolution with archaeological data to produce a sociopolitically based model of the rise, florescence, and decline of the Chaco Phenomenon.