Native Americans: Non-Fiction

How do you tell the story of North America? Blackhawk’s version folds in the often sidelined history of First Nations people, beginning with first colonial contact, to present day Nations. In this National Book Award winning title, Blackhawk correctly brings home the fact that Native peoples in North America held their own for hundreds of years through waves of settlement. Weaving the stories of colonialism, revolution, treaty making, railroad expansion, reservations, the Indian Power movement all the way to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People Blackhawk fills in gaps in our understanding of the history of North America.

Frances Densmore was a self-trained anthropologist who collected artifacts and recorded over 2500 songs from thirty-five Native American tribes.  Some of her methods are considered controversial, but her collections at the Smithsonian and the Minnesota Historical Society still provide invaluable information. This is the first researched biography of her life. LAPL owns many of her books on Native American music.

Novelist David Treuer presents a view of what modern life is like for Minnesota's Ojibwe tribe. Treuer, who is an Ojibwe, presents a candid and objective view of life on today's reservation, from casinos to the conflict of Native American culture with modern America.

Military leader of the Oglala Sioux, Crazy Horse was a legendary leader who is best known for defeating General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Mari Sandoz's biography is based on interviews with many of his people and captures the personality of this iconic leader.

Writer Mari Sandoz wrote extensively about the history and plight of Native Americans.  Although she was not connected by birth to any indigenous peoples, Sandoz vigorously took up their cause. Editor Kimberli A. Lee has organized a collection of letters which substantiates Sandoz " . . . as one of the most significant non-Native chroniclers and advocates for Plains Indian cultures. There is much here for historians and other scholars of American Indian, Great Plains, rhetorical, and women’s studies."

A doumentation of the 1975 gun battle between FBI agents and the American Indian Movement.  This confrontation took place near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, with one Native American and two FBI agents dead. There were several trials and one extended legal action that prevented this book from being published for eight years.

Toypurina was a shaman, or medicine woman, in the Gabrieleño tribe. She was the first Native American woman to rise up against the European colonizers and lead a rebellion.

In motion pictures and on television, Native Americans have been portrayed and presented in the most egregious, stereotypical ways.  This book features leading Native American actors and filmmakers who express their thoughts about how the entertainment industry can change. "From the silent era to contemporary movies, this book features leading Native American actors whose voices have reached a broad audience and are part of the larger conversation about the exploitation of underrepresented people in Hollywood."

Matthiessen examines the takeover of land by white settlers which impacted the Miccosukee, Hopi, Cherokee, Mohawk, Urok, Karuk, Lakota, Chumsah, Paiute, Shoshone, Ute, and Navajo

A carefully researched and documented account of the western expansion and systematic ravaging of Native Americans (Dakota, Nez Perce, Ute, Cheyenne, Ponca, Navajo, Apache, and other tribal nations) and their lands by the white man during the last half of the 19th century. This book presents the history of westward expansion from the perspective of Native Americans, who were its victums. Translated into numerous lanugages, the book has never been out of print since it was first published over forty years ago.

What was America like before Columbus?  In this book Mann explores that question surveying the current state of archeology to paint a picture different from the one you read in your school history book.  A slow but rewarding read.
 

Andrés Reséndez sheds new light on the enslavement of Native American peoples, a common practice, which did not have any political or social leaders who spoke out against it.

Comanche chief Quanah was the son of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped as a nine-year-old girl by the Comanches, and became known as the "White Squaw." This book provides new information on the tribe that waged war for forty years, and prevented simple colonization of Texas and other parts of the west. 

When the United States Civil War ended, the expansion of the union continued westward into Native American lands. Based upon extensive research, this book presents perspectives from various Native Americans on how best to make peace, or to wage war in order to defend their lands. It also portrays the ideas and attitudes of United States' political, social and military leaders toward the Native Americans.

From 1843 to 1873, the Native American population in California was leveled from approximately 150,000 to 30,000. This was not due to disease or starvation, but to a systematic slaughter of Native peoples who were in the way of land expansion by new settlers and the Gold Rush. Scholar and historian Benjamin Madley details the fact that prior to 1846, numerous explorers and settlers spoke about the friendliness of Native American tribes. After that time period, there was a concerted, documented effort by a broad spectrum of government agencies to portray the Native Americans as confrontational and dangerous.

By way of personal history and anthropological research, David Treuer (Ojibwe) provides an alternative narrative to Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. He documents how 125 years of discrimination, repression and broken promises did not defeat and diminish Native Americans in their quest for justice, but strengthened their pursuit for what is rightfully theirs.

Based on extensive research, this book documents how the Seneca Nation was strong and flexible during times when their defeat might have been imminent.

Told from the perspective of an indigenous activist, scholar and writer, this history of the United States docouments the purposely legislated policies and actions taken to eliminate indigenous peoples, from the exploration and founding of the country to the present.

In 1985, Wilma Mankiller became the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.  In the Cherokee language, Asgaya-dihi designates a military rank such as a captain, or it can reference a shaman who can create justice through spiritual means. Wilma Mankiller overcame numerous obstacles in her life and this documentary fully presents her personal and public contributions to all peoples of the world.

Kari Marie Norgaard, professor of sociology and environmental studies, has interacted and studied “environmental justice policy work with the Karuk Tribe since 2003 ...  and draws upon nearly two decades of examples and insight from Karuk experiences on the Klamath River to illustrate how the ecological dynamics of settler-colonialism are essential for theorizing gender, race and social power today."

Maria Tallchief was one of the world's foremost prima ballerinas. She was part of the burgeoning New York City Ballet, an inspiration to its co-founder George Ballanchine, and became his wife. He choreographed ballets specifically for her, ones that are now a part of the classic ballet repertoire. Maria Tallchief was the daughter of a full-blooded Oklahoma Osage Indian and a Scots-Irish mother.

Based on extensive interviews with women who are healers and spiritual leaders from the Plains Indians (including Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, and Assiniboine), the authors analyze and present the myths and cultures of the people. In this community, there is no separation of the spiritual and daily life, where women have a very strong and important place.

A history of the largest medical mission, the Ganado Mission, on the Navajo Indian Reservation. After the American Indian Wars there was still widespread prejudice among white people toward Native Americans. At the Ganado Mission, missionaries and doctors thought differently and organized the Native American Nursing School.

A meticulous, historical examination of how Indigenous peoples created the land that became known as California. What they contributed took place long before there were Europeans, Spanish or Mexicans, the Gold Rush and other relatively modern incursions.