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Indigenous History is American History

MHL will be closed on Monday, October 13th. But we’ll be open our usual hours of 1-5pm on Sunday, October 12th, so you can drop in and pick up some great books about Indigenous American history.

By the fire we carry  : The Generations-long Fight for Justice on Native Land

by Rebecca Nagle

"A powerful work of reportage and American history in the vein of Caste and How the Word Is Passed that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation's earliest days, and a small-town murder in the '90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later"

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask : Young Readers Edition

by Anton Treuer

From the acclaimed Ojibwe author and professor Anton Treuer comes an essential book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native young readers alike. Ranging from "Why is there such a fuss about nonnative people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?" to "Why is it called a 'traditional Indian fry bread taco'?" to "What's it like for natives who don't look native?" to "Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?", and beyond, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask (Young Readers Edition) does exactly what its title says for young readers, in a style consistently thoughtful, personal, and engaging. 

God, war, and Providence : the epic struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians against the Puritans of New England

by James A Warren

The tragic and fascinating history of the first epic struggle between white settlers and Native Americans in the early seventeenth century: a fresh look at the aggressive expansionist Puritans in New England and the determined Narragansett Indians, who refused to back down and accept English authority over people and their land.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's indigenous peoples' history of the United States : a graphic interpretation

by Paul Peart-Smith

In stunning full color and accessible text, a graphic adaptation of the American Book Award winning history of the United States as told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples.

The last stand of the Raven Clan : a story of imperial ambition, native resistance and how the Tlingit-Russian War shaped a continent

by Gerald Easter

The Last Stand of the Raven Clan is the true story of how the indigenous Tlingit people of southeast Alaska thwarted Imperial Russia's grand plan of conquest in North America. Leading the charge was the young war chief K'alyaan, a hero as fierce and courageous as Crazy Horse or Geronimo. The Tlingit stance against Russian colonization--during the Battle of Sitka and beyond--was arguably the most successful indigenous resistance against European imperialism in North America. Tlingit oral histories and Russian eyewitness accounts bring this history to life, shedding light on events both inspiring and infamous: the Massacre at Refuge Rock, one of Native America's worst atrocities; the Survival March, the perilous Tlingit retreat to avoid Russian capture and enslavement; and the cutthroat competition between the U.S. and Russia to control the northern Pacific. Ultimately, The Last Stand of the Raven Clan chronicles the determined struggle for survival of the Tlingit people in their ancestral homeland and places the Battle of Sitka in its rightful spot as a key turning point in North American history.

Native America : the story of the first peoples

by Kenneth L. Feder

Native America presents an infinitely surprising and fascinating deep history of the continent's Indigenous peoples. Kenneth Feder, a leading expert on Native American history and archaeology, draws on archaeological, historical, and cultural evidence to tell the ongoing story, more than 20,000 years in the making, of an incredibly resilient and diverse mixture of peoples, revealing how they have ingeniously adapted to the many changing environments of the continent, from the Arctic to the desert Southwest.

Of all tribes : American Indians and Alcatraz

by Joseph Bruchac

Recounts the stirring history of the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz by Native Americans seeking to reclaim the land, garnering international focus on Native American rights while inspiring a whole new generation of Native activists and igniting the modern American Indian Movement. 15,000 first printing. Illustrations.

The plot against native America : the fateful story of Native American boarding schools and the theft of tribal lands

by Bill Vaughn

Between 1859 and the 1960's missionaries and the U.S. government operated more than five hundred assimilation centers. Their ostensible goal was to solve the "Indian problem" by transforming Indigenous children into English-speaking Christians who could hold down a job or run a farm or manage a household. But as the government finally admitted, the real objective was to steal tribal land. Most of these boys and girls were taken forcibly from their families and sent far away in order to alienate them from their tribes and erase their languages, spirituality, and cultures. Despite the plot against Native America, Indigenous cultures have endured. With inspiring efforts, tribal councils are now building their own bison herds, teaching their children indigenous languages, as well as striving to build self-sufficient economies in this new era that is upon us.

The rediscovery of America : native peoples and the unmaking of U.S. history

by Ned Blackhawk

A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America.

Squanto : a native odyssey

by Andrew Lipman

Taken to Europe as a slave, he found his way home and changed the course of American history. American schoolchildren have long learned about Squanto, the welcoming Native who made the First Thanksgiving possible, but his story goes deeper than the holiday legend. Born in the Wampanoag-speaking town of Patuxet in the late 1500s, Squanto was kidnapped in 1614 by an English captain, who took him to Spain. From there, Englishmen brought him to London and Newfoundland before sending him home in 1619, when Squanto discovered that most of Patuxet had died in an epidemic. A year later, the Mayflower colonists arrived at his home and renamed it Plymouth. Prize-winning historian Andrew Lipman explores the mysteries that still surround Squanto: How did he escape bondage and return home? Why did he help the English after an Englishman enslaved him? Why did he threaten Plymouth's fragile peace with its neighbors? Was it true that he converted to Christianity on his deathbed? Drawing from a wide range of evidence and newly uncovered sources, Lipman reconstructs Squanto's upbringing, his transatlantic odyssey, his career as an interpreter, his surprising downfall, and his enigmatic death. The result is a fresh look at an epic life that ended right when many Americans think their story begins.

This land is their land : the Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the troubled history of Thanksgiving

by David J. Silverman

The author of Thundersticks presents an account of the Plymouth colony’s founding that incorporates the perspectives of Wampanoag witnesses and contributors, documenting the events that led to the creation and violent dissolution of essential peace agreements

The undiscovered country : triumph, tragedy, and the shaping of the American West

by Paul Andrew Hutton

Revisits the American West of 1755 to 1890 through the lives of four frontiersmen and three Native leaders, examining the violent realities, cultural myths, and environmental costs behind the celebrated narrative of national expansion and identity. 

Unworthy republic : the dispossession of Native Americans and the road to Indian territory

by Claudio Saunt

A history of the 1830s forced migration of indigenous populations to territories west of the Mississippi describes the government-driven fraud, intimidation and murder that were used to confiscate Native American homelands and property.

The worst trickster story ever told : Native America, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Constitution

by Keith Richotte

 More than corrective constitutional history, The Worst Trickster Story Ever Told provides an irreverent synthesis of Native American legal history across more than 100 years, reflecting on race, power, and sovereignty along the way. Engaging with the story of plenary power from an Indigenous perspective, Richotte shows, opens possibilities that are otherwise foreclosed. Through the genre of trickster stories we are able to imagine a future that is more just and equitable, and that better fulfills the text and the spirit of the Constitution.