An early traveller to the Americas who sailed on one of Columbus's voyages, Las Casas was so horrified by the wholesale massacre he witnessed that he dedicated his life to protecting the Indian community. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1542, a shocking catalogue of mass slaughter, torture and slavery, which showed that the evangelizing vision of Columbus had descended under later conquistadors into genocide. Dedicated to Philip II to alert the Castilian Crown to these atrocities and demand that the Indians be entitled to the basic rights of humankind, this passionate work of documentary vividness outraged Europe and contributed to the idea of the Spanish 'Black Legend' that would last for centuries.

    Mexico is seen here as if it were a person, but in the Aztec way; the mind, the heart, the winds of life; and on every page there are portraits and stories: artists, shamans, teachers, a young Maya political leader; the rich few and the many poor. Earl Shorris is ingenious at finding ways to tell this story: prostitutes in the Plaza Loreto launch the discussion of economics; we are taken inside two crucial elections as Mexico struggles toward democracy; we watch the creation of a popular "telenovela" and meet the country's greatest living intellectual. The result is a work of magnificent scope and profound insight into the divided soul of Mexico.

    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.

    The uniquely multicultural nature of life on a seventeenth-century Barbadan sugar plantation--defined by a mixture of English, American Indian, and African ways and folklore--indelibly shaped the young Tituba's world and the mental images she brought with her to Massachusetts.Breslaw divides Tituba's story into two parts. The first focuses on Tituba's roots in Barbados, the second on her life in the New World. The author emphasizes the inextricably linked worlds of the Caribbean and the North American colonies, illustrating how the Puritan worldview was influenced by its perception of possessed Indians. Breslaw argues that Tituba's confession to practicing witchcraft clearly reveals her savvy and determined efforts to protect herself by actively manipulating Puritan fears. This confession, perceived as evidence of a diabolical conspiracy, was the central agent in the cataclysmic series of events that saw 19 people executed and over 150 imprisoned, including a young girl of 5.A landmark contribution to women's history and early American history, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem sheds new light on one of the most painful episodes in American history, through the eyes of its most crucial participant.

    Begun in the 1870s, it was intended, in the words of government officials, to bring these children into the “circle of civilization,” the results, however, were far different. More often, the schools provided an inferior education in an atmosphere of neglect, disease, and often abuse.     Using previously unreleased government documents, historian John S. Milloy provides a full picture of the history and reality of the residential school system. He begins by tracing the ideological roots of the system, and follows the paper trail of internal memoranda, reports from field inspectors, and letters of complaint. In the early decades, the system grew without planning or restraint. Despite numerous critical commissions and reports, it persisted into the 1970s, when it transformed itself into a social welfare system without improving conditions for its thousands of wards. A National Crime shows that the residential system was chronically underfunded and often mismanaged, and documents in detail and how this affected the health, education, and well-being of entire generations of Aboriginal children.

    The larger-than-life characters of Geronimo, Cochise, and General George Crook move dramatically through these pages, illuminating the human story behind the Apache Wars.

    Much less understood is how disastrous it was for the "victors, " the Sioux and Cheyenne under the leadership of Sitting Bull: within fifteen years all Native Americans were confined to reservations, their culture in ruins. James Welch poignantly resurrects their side of the story from beneath a mountain of myth and misinterpretation, relating in masterful prose the pride and desperation of a people stripped of treaty rights and hounded from ancestral hunting grounds into wretched reservations. Through this critical missing piece that tells the Indian side of the story, " Killing Custer" rethinks the meaning of the Little Bighorn for a multicultural society.

    During that long span of time a cultural evolution took place which saw a high development of the arts and literature, the formulation of complex religious doctrines, systems of education, and diverse political and social organization.The rich documentation concerning these people, commonly called Aztecs, includes, in addition to a few codices written before the Conquest, thousands of folios in the Nahuatl or Aztec language written by natives after the Conquest. Adapting the Latin alphabet, which they had been taught by the missionary friars, to their native tongue, they recorded poems, chronicles, and traditions.The fundamental concepts of ancient Mexico presented and examined in this book have been taken from more than ninety original Aztec documents. They concern the origin of the universe and of life, conjectures on the mystery of God, the possibility of comprehending things beyond the realm of experience, life after death, and the meaning of education, history, and art. The philosophy of the Nahuatl wise men, which probably stemmed from the ancient doctrines and traditions of the Teotihuacans and Toltecs, quite often reveals profound intuition and in some instances is remarkably “modern.”This English edition is not a direct translation of the original Spanish, but an adaptation and rewriting of the text for the English-speaking reader.

    Clair led the United States army in a campaign to destroy a complex of Indian villages at the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio. Almost within reach of their objective, St. Clair's 1,400 men were attacked by about one thousand Indians. The U.S. force was decimated, suffering nearly one thousand casualties in killed and wounded, while Indian casualties numbered only a few dozen. But despite the lopsided result, it wouldn't appear to carry much significance; it involved only a few thousand people, lasted less than three hours, and the outcome, which was never in doubt, was permanently reversed a mere three years later. Neither an epic struggle nor a clash that changed the course of history, the battle doesn't even have a name.Yet, as renowned Native American historian Colin Calloway demonstrates here, St. Clair's Defeat--as it came to be known-- was hugely important for its time. It was both the biggest victory the Native Americans ever won, and, proportionately, the biggest military disaster the United States had suffered. With the British in Canada waiting in the wings for the American experiment in republicanism to fail, and some regions of the West gravitating toward alliance with Spain, the defeat threatened the very existence of the infant United States. Generating a deluge of reports, correspondence, opinions, and debates in the press, it produced the first congressional investigation in American history, while ultimately changing not only the manner in which Americans viewed, raised, organized, and paid for their armies, but the very ways in which they fought their wars.Emphasizing the extent to which the battle has been overlooked in history, Calloway illustrates how this moment of great victory by American Indians became an aberration in the national story and a blank spot in the national memory. Calloway shows that St. Clair's army proved no match for the highly motivated and well-led Native American force that shattered not only the American army but the ill-founded assumption that Indians stood no chance against European methods and models of warfare. An engaging and enlightening read for American history enthusiasts and scholars alike, The Victory with No Name brings this significant moment in American history back to light.

    For six years Linda Melvern has worked on the story of this horrendous crime, and this book, a classic piece of investigative journalism, is the result. Its new and startling information has the making of an international scandal.The book contains a full narrative account of how the genocide unfolded and describes its scale, speed and intensity. And the book provides a terrible indictment, not just of the UN Security Council, but even more so of governments and individuals who could have prevented what was happening but chose not to do so.Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews, the author also tells the story of the unrecognized heroism of those who stayed on during the genocide - volunteer UN peacekeepers, their Force Commander the Canadian Lt.-General Romeo A. Dallaire, and Philippe Gaillard, the head of a delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, helped by medical teams from Medecins Sans Frontieres.The international community, which fifty years ago resolved that genocide never happened again, not only failed to prevent it happening in Rwanda, but, as this book shows, international funds intended to help the Rwandan economy actually helped to create the conditions that made the genocide possible. Documents held in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, as well as hitherto unpublished evidence of secret UN Security Council deliberations in New York, reveal a shocking sequence of events.What happened in Rwanda shows that despite the creation of an organisation set up to prevent a repetition of genocide - for the UN is central to this task - it failed to do so, even when the evidence was indisputable. At a time when increasing attention is being given to the need for UN reform, this book provides evidence to urgently accelerate and focus that process. Only by understanding how and why the genocide happened can there be any hope that this new century will break with the dismal record of the last.

    But tenacious and visionary tribal leaders refused to give in. They knew their rights and insisted that the treaties be honored. Against all odds, beginning shortly after World War II, they began to succeed. The modern tribal sovereignty movement deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as the civil rights, environmental, and women's movements. Charles Wilkinson recounts in colorful terms tribal victories in major legal conflicts in contemporary America: the Indian land claims in Maine and other eastern states, the "salmon wars" of the Pacific Northwest, and the establishment of tribal casinos as a way of making inroads into poverty. "Blood Struggle explores how Indian tribes took their hard-earned sovereignty--their right to self-determination--and put it to work for Indian peoples and the perpetuation of Indian culture. Finally, this is the story of wrongs righted and noble ideals upheld.

    Neil Hanson — acclaimed author of The Great Fire of London — traces the origins of the conflict from the Old World to the New, delineating the Armada campaign in rousing prose. He illuminates the lives of kings and popes, spymasters and assassins, military commanders and common sailors, and the ordinary men and women caught up in this great event when the fate of nations hung in the balance. The Confident Hope of a Miracle is authentic and original history written with the pace and drama of a novel.

    Inga Clendinnen's account of the Aztecs recreates the culture of that city in its last unthreatened years. It provides a vividly dramatic analysis of Aztec ceremony as performance art, binding the key experiences and concerns of social existence in the late imperial city to the mannered violence of their ritual killings.

    Aimed at a broad general audience as well as college and high school students, this milestone volume offers a rich, readable text and unique historical photographs to highlight individuals, issues and pivotal developments that culminated in and comprise a landmark period for the second largest ethnic minority in the United States.

    Unravel the remarkable mysteries of the ancient peoples who built great palaces and pyramids, and developed an accurate calendar and a knowledge of astronomy without the benefit of telescopes or written language.