The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History


Darren Parry - 2019
    While never flinching from the realities of Latter-day Saint encroachment on Shoshone land and the racial ramifications of America’s spread westward, Parry offers messages of hope. As storyteller for his people, Parry brings the full weight of Shoshone wisdom to his tales—lessons of peace in the face of violence, of strength in the teeth of annihilation, of survival through change, and of the pliability necessary for cultural endurance. These are arresting stories told disarmingly well. What emerges from the margins of these stories is much more than a history of a massacre from the Shoshone perspective, it is a poignant meditation on the resilience of the soul of a people.--W. Paul Reeve, author of Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness

Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory


Claudio Saunt - 2020
    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.

Chuvalo: A Fighter's Life: The Story of Boxing's Last Gladiator


George Chuvalo - 2013
    After teaching himself the basics, he turned pro as an eighteen-year-old in 1956 and over the next twenty-three years fought some of the sport's greatest names: Joe Frazier, George Foreman and, most famously, Muhammad Ali (twice). Since retiring from the ring in 1979, Chuvalo has had to come to terms with a series of crushing body blows. His youngest son, a heroin addict, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Two other sons died from heroin overdoses. His first wife, overcome with grief, took her own life. Yet Chuvalo has stoically fought back. He formed his Fight Against Drugs foundation in 1996 and has spent the past seventeen years travelling across Canada and to parts of the United States, talking to tens of thousands of students and young adults about what happened to his family.An inspirational story of a Canadian icon, Chuvalo is both a top-flight boxing memoir and a poignant, hard-hitting story of coping with unimaginable loss.

The Fetterman Massacre


Dee Brown - 1962
    Providing a vivid backdrop to the battle, Brown offers a portrait of Wyoming's Ft. Phil Kearney and the remarkable men who built and defended it. Based on a wealth of historical sources and sparked by Brown's narrative genius, "The Fetterman Massacre" is an essential look at one of the frontier's defining conflicts.

Across the Plains (Illustrated): A first hand account of pioneer life in the American West


Catherine Sager - 2015
    Catherine Sager captured her family's trip across the American West in her journal. Her story describes the terrible journey which the early Oregon settlers made in order to settle and colonise a new territory with many hardships and heartaches along the way.This account today is regarded as one of the most authentic accounts of the American westward migration. This edition has extra contextual information such as paintings, maps and facts to enhance the gripping narrative of Catherine Sager. The Sager Family Catehrine's father, Henry Sager was described as a restless one in her journal. Before 1844 he had moved his growing family three times. In April 1844 Henry and his family took part in the great westward migration and started their journey along the Oregon Trail. During their journey both he and his wife lost their lives and left their seven children orphaned. They were later adopted by Marcus Whitman and Narcissa Whitman, missionaries in what is now Washington, the children were orphaned a second time, when both their new parents were killed during the Whitman massacre in November 1847. Catherine Sager's account About 1860 Catherine, the oldest of the Sager girls, wrote a first-hand account of their journey across the plains and their life with the Whitmans. Catherine's writing is clear, vivid and honest. She details pioneer life, the happy time she had with the Whitman's and the brutal massacre of the Whitman's by Indians. A survivor, she was also taken captive by the Indians. Her story shows how difficult life was for the early pioneers and gives a true insight into the early American West. What was the Oregon trail? The Oregon Trail is a 2,200-mile (3,500 km) historic east–west large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Idaho and Oregon.From the early to mid-1830s the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and businessmen and their families. Chapters Across the PlainsHome Life at the Whitman'sThe Waiilatpu MassacreIn Captivity

Wenjack


Joseph Boyden - 2016
    Along the way he's followed by Manitous, spirits of the forest who comment on his plight, cajoling, taunting, and ultimately offering him a type of comfort on his difficult journey back to the place he was so brutally removed from.Written by Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author Joseph Boyden and beautifully illustrated by acclaimed artist Kent Monkman, Wenjack is a powerful and poignant look into the world of a residential school runaway trying to find his way home.

Reluctant Pioneer: How I Survived Five Years in the Canadian Bush


Thomas Osborne - 1995
    The view 16-year-old Thomas Osborne first had of Muskoka was at night, trudging alone with his even younger brother along unmarked primitive roads to find their luckless father who, in 1875, had decided to make a new start for his beleaguered family on some "free land" in the bush east of the pioneer village of Huntsville, Ontario. The miracle is that Thomas lived to tell the tale.For the next five years Thomas endured starvation, falling through the ice and freezing, accidents with axes and boats, and narrow escapes from wolves and bears. Many years later, after returning to the United States, Osborne wrote down all his adventures in a graphic memoir that has become, in the words of author and journalist Roy MacGregor, "an undiscovered Canadian classic."Reluctant Pioneer provides a brooding sense of adventure and un- sentimental realism to deliver a powerful account of pioneer life where tragedies arrive as naturally as rain and where humour resides in irony.

A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder


Ma-Nee Chacaby - 2016
    From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby’s story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism.As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual abuse by different adults, and by her teen years she was alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby moved to Thunder Bay with her children to escape an abusive marriage. Abuse, compounded by racism, continued, but Chacaby found supports to help herself and others. Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety; trained and worked as an alcoholism counselor; raised her children and fostered many others; learned to live with visual impairment; and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in her adopted city, Thunder Bay, Ontario.Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, humor, and resilience. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people.

Night Spirits: The Story of the Relocation of the Sayisi Dene


Ila Bussidor - 2000
    In 1956, an arbitrary government decision to relocate them catapulted the Sayisi Dene into the 20th century. It replaced their traditional nomadic life of hunting and fishing with a slum settlement on the outskirts of Churchill, Manitoba. Inadequately housed, without jobs, unfamiliar with the language or the culture, their independence and self-determination deteriorated into a tragic cycle of discrimination, poverty, alcoholism and violent death.     By the early 1970s, the band realized they had to take their future into their own hands again. After searching for a suitable location, they set up a new community at Tadoule Lake, 250 miles north of Churchill. Today they run their own health, education and community programs. But the scars of the relocation will take years to heal, and Tadoule Lake is grappling with the problems of a people whose ties to the land, and to one another, have been tragically severed.     In Night Spirits, the survivors, including those who were children at the time of the move, as well as the few remaining elders, recount their stories. They offer a stark and brutally honest account of the near-destruction of the Sayisi Dene, and their struggle to reclaim their lives. It is a dark story, told in hope.

The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America


James Wilson - 1998
    Combining traditional historical sources with new insights from ethnography, archaeology, Indian oral tradition, and years of his original research, James Wilson weaves a historical narrative that puts Native Americans at the center of their struggle for survival against the tide of invading European peoples and cultures. The Earth Shall Weep charts the collision course between Euro-Americans and the indigenous people of the continent, from the early interactions at English settlements on the Atlantic coast, through successive centuries of encroachment and outright warfare, to the new political force of the Native American activists of today. It is a clash that would ultimately result in the reduction of the Native American population from an estimated seven to ten million to 250,000 over a span of four hundred years, and change the face of the continent forever. A tour de force of narrative history, The Earth Shall Weep is a powerful, moving telling of the story of Native Americans that has become the new standard for future work in the field.

Stoney Creek Woman: The Story of Mary John


Bridget Moran - 1988
    A mother of twelve, Mary endured much tragedy and heartbreak?the pangs of racism, poverty, and the deaths of six children?but lived her life with extraordinary grace and courage. Years after her death, she continues to be a positive role model for Aboriginals across Canada. In 1997 she received the Order of Canada. This edition of "Stoney Creek Woman," one of Arsenal's all-time bestsellers, includes a new preface by author Bridget Moran, and new photographs. Shortlisted for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize Now in its 14th printing.

Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation


John Ehle - 1988
    government policy toward Indians in the early 1800s is that it persisted in removing to the West those who had most successfully adapted to European values. As whites encroached on Cherokee land, many Native leaders responded by educating their children, learning English, and developing plantations. Such a leader was Ridge, who had fought with Andrew Jackson against the British. As he and other Cherokee leaders grappled with the issue of moving, the land-hungry Georgia legislatiors, with the aid of Jackson, succeeded in ousting the Cherokee from their land, forcing them to make the arduous journey West on the infamous "Trail of Tears." (Library Journal)

#Notyourprincess: Voices of Native American Women


Lisa Charleyboy - 2017
    In the same style as the best-selling Dreaming in Indian, #NotYourPrincess presents an eclectic collection of poems, essays, interviews, and art that combine to express the experience of being a Native woman. Stories of abuse, humiliation, and stereotyping are countered by the voices of passionate women making themselves heard and demanding change. Sometimes angry, often reflective, but always strong, the women in this book will give teen readers insight into the lives of women who, for so long, have been virtually invisible.

Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance


Nick Estes - 2019
    Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.

Paying the Land


Joe Sacco - 2020
    To the Dene, the land owns them and it is central to their livelihood and very way of being. But the subarctic Canadian Northwest Territories are home to valuable resources, including oil, gas, and diamonds. With mining came jobs and investment, but also road-building, pipelines, and toxic waste, which scarred the landscape, and alcohol, drugs, and debt, which deformed a way of life.In Paying the Land, Joe Sacco travels the frozen North to reveal a people in conflict over the costs and benefits of development. Sacco recounts the shattering impact of a residential school system that aimed to “remove the Indian from the child”; the destructive process that drove the Dene from the bush into settlements and turned them into wage laborers; the government land claims stacked against the Dene Nation; and their uphill efforts to revive a wounded culture.