Beginning with a 1540 refusal by a Timucua chief to parley with Hernando de Soto ("With such a people I want no peace"), the collection extends to the 20th-century address of activist Russell Means to the United Nations affiliates and members of the Human Rights Commission ("We are people who love in the belly of the monster").Other memorable orations include Powhatan's "Why should you destroy us, who have provided you with food?" (1609); Red Jacket's "We like our religion, and do not want another" (1811); Osceola's "I love my home, and will not go from it" (1834); Red Cloud's "The Great Spirit made us both" (1870); Chief Joseph's "I will fight no more forever" (1877); Sitting Bull's "The life my people want is a life of freedom" (1882); and many more. Other notable speakers represented here include Tecumseh, Seattle, Geronimo, and Crazy Horse, as well as many lesser-known leaders.Graced by forceful metaphors and vivid imagery expressing emotions that range from the utmost indignation to the deepest sorrow, these addresses are deeply moving documents that offer a window into the hearts and minds of Native Americans as they struggled against the overwhelming tide of European and American encroachment. This inexpensive edition, with informative notes about each speech and orator, will prove indispensable to anyone interested in Native American history and culture.

    A vast and powerful alliance of thousands of farming hamlets and nearly 100 spectacular towns integrated the region through economic and religious ties, and the whole system was interconnected with hundreds of miles of roads. It took these Anasazi farmers more than seven centuries to lay the agricultural, organizational, and technological groundwork for the creation of classic Chacoan civilization, which lasted about 200 years--only to collapse spectacularly in a mere 40.Why did such a great society collapse? Who survived? Why? In this lively book anthropologist/archaeologist David Stuart presents answers to these questions that offer useful lessons to modern societies. His account of the rise and fall of the Chaco Anasazi brings to life the people known to us today as the architects of Chaco Canyon, the spectacular national park in New Mexico that thousands of tourists visit every year.

    The Olmec—best known for a unique style of monumental stone head and jade were-jaguar—were based along the Gulf of Mexico but have also been linked to other Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Maya and Aztec. This book discusses recent spectacular finds and provides a framework for understanding the history, art, and archaeology of the Olmec.

    "Artfully weaving old photographs, first-person accounts, and well-organized text and verse, the editors present important and predominantly Native views of some 'good, bad, and ugly' aspects of Indian boarding school life.—Choice

    In Here First, authors such as Sherman Alexie, Greg Sarris, and Elizabeth Woody tell the stories of their lives and their art. Each essay demonstrates the breadth of experience of twenty-seven individuals united in the creative expression of a Native American heritage. Each has a different relation to that heritage, and in describing it through personal and family history, with verse and in anecdotes, the writers give a strong image of the different cultures that have shaped them. This is living history and the kind of collective memoir that makes for fascinating and rewarding reading--one of the most vivid and diverse portraits of Native American culture available today.

    Many historians now question both his reputation and his place in the pantheon of American heroes. In Kit Carson and the Indians, Tom Dunlay urges us to reconsider Carson yet again. To Dunlay, Carson was simply a man of the nineteenth century whose racial views and actions were much like those of his contemporaries.

    From humble beginnings, Coosa became one of the most important chiefdoms in the Southeast, dominating a territory from present eastern Tennessee to central Alabama. But by the beginning of the 18th century, the once powerful chiefdom had been reduced to a few towns in the Creek Confederacy. "A masterful integration of archaeological and historical information."-George R. Milner, Pennsylvania State University "A convincing account of where these people came from, and what happened to them in the shadowy years after their fateful encounter with De Soto's Spanish army."-Vernon J. Knight, University of Alabama