Best of
Native-American-History

1999

Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier


James H. Merrell - 1999
    It is also a reflection on the meanings of wilderness to the colonists and natives of the New World. From the Quaker colony's founding in the 1680s into the 1750s, Merrell shows us how the go-betweens survived in the woods, dealing with problems of food, travel, lodging, and safety, and how they sought to bridge the vast cultural gaps between the Europeans and the Indians. The futility of these efforts became clear in the sickening plummet into war after 1750. "A stunningly original and exceedingly well-written account of diplomacy on the edge of the Pennsylvania wilderness."--Publishers Weekly

The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government's War on Dissent


Ernesto B. Vigil - 1999
    Vigil follows the movement chronologically from Gonzales’s early attempts to fight discrimination as a participant in local democratic politics to his radical stance as an organizer outside mainstream politics.     Drawing extensively upon FBI documentation that became available under the Freedom of Information Act, Vigil exposes massive surveillance of the Crusade for Justice by federal agents and local police and the damaging effects of such methods on ethnic liberation movements. Vigil complements these documents and the story of Gonzales’s development as a radical with the story of his personal involvement in the movement. The Crusade for Justice describes one of the most important Chicano organizations against prejudice.

Holding Stone Hands: On the Trail of the Cheyenne Exodus


Alan Boye - 1999
    Settled there against their will, they were making a peaceful attempt to return to their homeland in the Tongue River country of Montana. Despite earlier promises that the Cheyennes could choose to leave the reservation, government officials declared them renegades and sent thousands of soldiers in pursuit.In 1995 Alan Boye set out on foot to follow Dull Knife's thousand-mile flight through the sparsely populated wilderness of America's high plains. Along the way he was joined by descendents of Dull Knife. Holding Stone Hands is the tale of two journeys. Boye provides a vivid, moving account of the Cheyenne's struggle to return to Montana. At the same time, he details the trek he and his Cheyenne companions made through four states and his growing understanding of why the Cheyenne's longing for their homeland was stronger than their desire to live.

Indians and Europe: An Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays


Christian F. Feest - 1999
    The Native populations of North America have served a variety of European cultural and emotional needs, ranging from noble savage role models for Old World civilization to a more sympathetic portrayal as subjugated victims of American imperialism. This comprehensive, interdisciplinary collection of essays offers the first in-depth, extended look at the complicated, changing relationship between European and Native peoples. The contributors explore three aspects of this relationship: Why and how did the cultures and histories of Europeans enable Native peoples to become absorbed into the reality of the Old World? What happened in actual encounters between American Indian visitors and their European hosts? How did continued and increased interaction between Indians and Europeans affect established imagery and preconceptions on both sides?

First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History


Colin G. Calloway - 1999
    Written by a noted scholar and experienced textbook author, First Peoples combines documentary evidence with narrative that can anchor a course whether assigned alone or with a variety of supplements. Each chapter includes a brief narrative; primary-source documents, with headnotes and questions; and a topical picture essay.

Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations


Vine Deloria Jr. - 1999
    . . is a loosely related collection of past and present acts of Congress, treaties and agreements, executive orders, administrative rulings, and judicial opinions, connected only by the fact that law in some form has been applied haphazardly to American Indians over the course of several centuries. . . . Indians in their tribal relation and Indian tribes in their relation to the federal government hang suspended in a legal wonderland. In this book, two prominent scholars of American Indian law and politics undertake a full historical examination of the relationship between Indians and the United States Constitution that explains the present state of confusion and inconsistent application in U.S. Indian law. The authors examine all sections of the Constitution that explicitly and implicitly apply to Indians and discuss how they have been interpreted and applied from the early republic up to the present. They convincingly argue that the Constitution does not provide any legal rights for American Indians and that the treaty-making process should govern relations between Indian nations and the federal government.

Indians, Fire, and the Land in the Pacific Northwest


Robert Boyd - 1999
    This volume offers an interdisciplinary approach to one of the most important issues concerning Native Americans and their relationship to the land -- the use of fire to manage and shape the environment.

Peoples of the Northwest Coast: Their Archaeology and Prehistory


Kenneth M. Ames - 1999
    Stressing the dynamism of Northwest Coastal hunter-gatherers, anthropologists Ames (Portland State U.) and Maschner (U. of Wisconsin) describe the 11,000 year-history of these exceptional First Nation Peoples as a matter of stops and starts, shifts and ta

Dreamers: On the Trail of the Nez Perce


Martin Stadius - 1999
    In 1877, the "Dreamer" (non-Christian) faction of the tribe, under pressure from land-hungry whites to move to a reservation, fled their homeland in eastern Oregon and central Idaho. The Nee-Me-Poo led pursuing troops on a four-month, 1,100-mile chase that ended tragically only forty miles short of Canada. Today, the route of the Nee-Me-Poo retreat is a National Historic Trail, part of the Nez Perce National Historical Park, with sites in four Western states.