Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands


James F. Brooks - 2002
    Indigenous and colonial traditions of capture, servitude, and kinship met and meshed in the borderlands, forming a "slave system" in which victims symbolized social wealth, performed services for their masters, and produced material goods under the threat of violence. Slave and livestock raiding and trading among Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, Navajos, Utes, and Spaniards provided labor resources, redistributed wealth, and fostered kin connections that integrated disparate and antagonistic groups even as these practices renewed cycles of violence and warfare. Always attentive to the corrosive effects of the "slave trade" on Indian and colonial societies, the book also explores slavery's centrality in intercultural trade, alliances, and "communities of interest" among groups often antagonistic to Spanish, Mexican, and American modernizing strategies. The extension of the moral and military campaigns of the American Civil War to the Southwest in a regional "war against slavery" brought differing forms of social stability but cost local communities much of their economic vitality and cultural flexibility.

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.

The Hiawatha


David Treuer - 1999
    Her younger son Lester finds romance on the soon-to-be-demolished train, The Hiawatha, while his older brother Simon takes a dangerous job scaling skyscrapers. Their fates collide, and result in a tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.An elegy to the American dream, and to the sometimes tragic experience of the Native Americans who helped to build it, The Hiawatha is a powerful novel that confirms David Treuer's status as a young writer of rare talent.

When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846


Ramón A. Gutiérrez - 1991
    This social history of one remote corner of Spain's colonial American empire uses marriage as a window into intimate social relations, examining the Spanish conquest of America and its impact on a group of indigenous peoples, the Pueblo Indians, seen in large part from their point of view.

The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman


Margot Mifflin - 2009
    Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lifetime.Based on historical records, including letters and diaries of Oatman’s friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinois—including the massacre, her captivity, and her return to white society—to her later years as a wealthy banker’s wife in Texas.Oatman’s story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan. Its themes, from the perils of religious utopianism to the permeable border between civilization and savagery, are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Oatman’s blue tattoo was a cultural symbol that evoked both the imprint of her Mohave past and the lingering scars of westward expansion. It also served as a reminder of her deepest secret, fully explored here for the first time: she never wanted to go home.

It's All In The Frijoles: 100 Famous Latinos Share Real Life Stories Time-Tested Dichos, Favorite Folktales, and Inspiring Words of Wisdom


Yolanda Nava - 2000
    A treasure trove of cherished folktales, lullabies, poems, and dichos, this rich collection of Latino wisdom includes inspiring recollections and anecdotes by well-known and beloved figures, both past and present -- from actor Edward James Olmos and author Isabel Allende to Nobel laureate Octavio Paz and Saint Teresa de Avila. It's All in the Frijoles is certain to evoke with fondness many a childhood memory of essential teachings learned from parents and grandparents, including: El hombre debe ser feo, fuerte, y formal. A man should be homely, hardy, and honorable. El consejo de la mujer es poco y él que no lo agarra es loco. The advice of a woman is very scarce and the person who does not heed it is crazy. Pueblo dividido, pueblo vencido. A people divided, a people conquered. It's All in the Frijoles captures and perpetuates the essence of Latino tradition and is destined to become a family treasure that is passed down from generation to generation. This legacy of wisdom provides food for thought not only for Latinos but also for people of all other ethnic backgrounds.

The Business of Fancydancing


Sherman Alexie - 1991
    Fiction. Published in 1992, well before Sherman Alexie became well-known as the screenwriter for the film SMOKE SIGNALS, THE BUSINESS OF FANCYDANCING has now been turned into a film with none other than Alexie himself in his directorial debut. The screenplay for the movie, which recently won the Audience Award at the San Francisco Film Festival, is loosly adapted from this book. Many film-goers will want to visit or revisit the elegaic poems and stories that set the tone for the film itself. In an age when many 'Native American' writers publish books that prove their ignorance of the real Indian world, Sherman Alexie paints painfully honest visions of our beautiful and brutal lives--Adrian C. Louis.

The Bloody & Brave History of Native American Warriors & the Women Who Supported Them Illustrated


Edwin L. Sabin - 2010
    This 399-page put together by the late Edwin Sabin gives a thorough yet readable account of the awesome feats and bravery of the great warrior leaders of these ancient peoples that occupied and cultivated this continent thousands of years before the white man stumbled upon it by mistake.Chet DembeckPublisher of One

Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask


Anton Treuer - 2012
    . . I made many lifelong friends at college, and they supported but also challenged me with questions like, ‘Why should Indians have reservations?’ ”What have you always wanted to know about Indians? Do you think you should already know the answers—or suspect that your questions may be offensive? In matterof-fact responses to over 120 questions, both thoughtful and outrageous, modern and historical, Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist Anton Treuer gives a frank, funny, and sometimes personal tour of what’s up with Indians, anyway.• What is the real story of Thanksgiving?• Why are tribal languages important?• What do you think of that incident where people died in a sweat lodge?White/Indian relations are often characterized by guilt and anger. Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask cuts through the emotion and builds a foundation for true understanding and positive action.Anton Treuer, author of The Assassination of Hole in the Day and many other books on Ojibwe history and language, received an Ambassador Award in 2011 from Facing Race: We’re All in This Together, an initiative of the St. Paul Foundation. All around Minnesota, Treuer has given scores of public lectures and been asked hundreds of questions—many like the ones in this book.

Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World


Jack Weatherford - 1988
    He traces the crucial contributions made by the Indians to our federal system of government, our democratic institutions, modern medicine, agriculture, architecture, and ecology, and in this astonishing, ground-breaking book takes a giant step toward recovering a true American history.

Shadow Wolf (Native Warrior Series)


Elizabeth Anne Porter - 2019
    Disillusioned with the killing, Shadow Wolf decides to covertly hit them where it matters most; he becomes the proficient thief who causes entire wagon trains to give up and turn around. When their ammo and weapons disappear in the dark of night, they lose confidence and decide to head back East. However, when a French trapper brings his younger sister into Shadow Wolf’s world, life gets tougher still. Drucilla cannot keep her mouth shut and her newfound feelings toward men are both confusing and irritating. Shadow Wolf wants nothing to do with her immature babbling but is impressed with her survival skills. When they are attacked, she shows her worth as a strong and knowledgeable woman of the land but, will that be enough to make it work? Surrounded by death and loss, will an innocent white girl just coming into her adulthood and the disenchanted Native Warrior fall in love while risking life and limb for each other? This story will change the way you look at love and devotion. Will he give his life to save the one he loves?

Dyed in the Wool


Joyce Lekas - 2012
    Environmental issues are central, as is the Navajo way of life, and weaving. When Annie McLeod's car is rammed and shoved into a ditch in the dead of night, she knows that something criminal is afoot on the Navajo reservation. She and her stepsons are injured in the crash, the latest in a string of problems. First, an experimental testing device showed toxins in reservation stream water; then Navajo weavers confided they believed something was wrong with their wool. Scientists solve problems, and Annie, a chemist, is determined to uncover the threats facing the Navajo people. From the analytical lab where she works in Phoenix, to the craggy mountains and remote canyons of the vast reservation, Annie's quest uncovers a deadly business, where the stakes keep rising and not everyone comes out alive.

Brother Frank's Gospel Hour: Stories


W.P. Kinsella - 1995
    These eleven stories continue the adventures of Silas Ermineskin and his sidekick Frank Fencepost, as Kinsella returns to the Cree Indian reserve in Hobbema, Alberta, where his cast of zany characters, last seen in The Fencepost Chronicles and The Miss Hobbema Pageant, is at its wry best.Here Frank Fencepost, true to form as a fast-talking con artist, outwits the Alberta Supreme Court in a hilarious cattle-insemination case in "Bull." In the title story he becomes an evangelizing Robin Hood, turning the government-sponsored K-U-G-H radio show into a scheme to use listeners' donations to fund listeners' wishes (and incidentally line his pockets), and in "Miracle on Manitoba Street" he visits a Montana reserve where he carves a picture of the Virgin Mary on a derelict Frigidaire and convinces the local medicine woman it's a miracle—one worthy of an admission charge.Not all the stories are humorous: "Dream Catcher" grapples with sexual violence when Silas's twelve-year-old sister is assaulted and Mad Etta, the community's four-hundred-pound medicine woman, provides a nightmare "cure" for the would-be rapist; "Ice Man" depicts gender discrimination, as Jason Twelve Trees fights to participate in a cooking competition despite his father's wish for him to become a mechanic; and "The Rain Birds" shows the consequences of the government's computer-driven corporate farms riding roughshod over the human and natural environment in western Canada.

Brazen: Be a Voice, Not an Echo


Sean Feucht - 2020
    After seven months of pouring my heart, soul and guts into something so demanding and so intense, this was the moment of truth. We were one of the most watched Congressional campaigns in America and everyone “knew” Super Tuesday was just a stepping stone to get to November. Then the finality of the words came. Second place. The end of the road.Sean Feucht never backed down from a challenge and running for US Congress was no exception. From birth, there was a call on his life to dream about the impossible, and then partner with God to see miracles come about. From going to the darkest corners of the earth to starting a world-wide prayer and worship movement, Sean has been brazen as he resolutely pursues the call of God on his life.Sean poignantly shares the deep losses in his life and how God showed up inexplicably to always show Himself to be faithful and good. In Brazen, he shares a vulnerable story of trust and how God always shows up even in your darkest hour and seemingly greatest loss. Be inspired to see your circumstances in a new way.

Crazy Brave


Joy Harjo - 2012
    She attended an Indian arts boarding school, where she nourished an appreciation for painting, music, and poetry; gave birth while still a teenager; and struggled on her own as a single mother, eventually finding her poetic voice.Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice. Harjo’s tale of a hardscrabble youth, young adulthood, and transformation into an award-winning poet and musician is haunting, unique, and visionary.