Synopses & Reviews
During the century following George Washingtonand#8217;s presidency, the United States fought at least forty wars with various Indian tribes, averaging one conflict every two and a half years.
Warrior Nations is Roger L. Nicholsand#8217;s response to the question, and#147;Why did so much fighting take place?and#8221; Examining eight of the wars between the 1780s and 1877, Nichols explains what started each conflict and what the eight had in common as well as how they differed. He writes about the fights between the United States and the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware tribes in the Ohio Valley, the Creek in Alabama, the Arikara in South Dakota, the Sauk and Fox in Illinois and Wisconsin, the Dakota Sioux in Minnesota, the Cheyenne and Arapaho in Colorado, the Apache in New Mexico and Arizona, and the Nez Perce in Oregon and Idaho.
Virtually all of these wars, Nichols shows, grew out of small-scale local conflicts, suggesting that interracial violence preceded any formal declaration of war. American pioneers hated and feared Indians and wanted their land. Indian villages were armed camps, and their young men sought recognition for bravery and prowess in hunting and fighting. Neither the U.S. government nor tribal leaders could prevent raids, thievery, and violence when the two groups met.
In addition to U.S. territorial expansion and the belligerence of racist pioneers, Nichols cites a variety of factors that led to individual wars: cultural differences, border disputes, conflicts between and within tribes, the actions of white traders and local politicians, the governmentand#8217;s failure to prevent or punish anti-Indian violence, and Native determination to retain their lands, traditional culture, and tribal independence.
The conflicts examined here, Nichols argues, need to be considered as wars of U.S. aggression, a central feature of that nationand#8217;s expansion across the continent that brought newcomers into areas occupied by highly militarized Native communities ready and able to defend themselves and attack their enemies.
Review
Praise for the first edition of The Dust Rose Like Smokeand#160;andldquo;It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of this brief but pioneering book.andrdquo;andmdash;Ethnohistoryand#160;andldquo;[Gumpandrsquo;s] opening chapters show a mastery of all the relevant historical literature. Indeed, they could be set for any undergraduate course in imperial history as textbook examples of how to build up a comparative framework of analysis.andrdquo;andmdash;Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Historyand#160;and#160;andldquo;An excellent scholarly introduction to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history of the Sioux and the Zulus as well as a thoughtful analysis of United States and British expansion.andrdquo;andmdash;Journal of American Historyand#160;andldquo;The first detailed, in-depth comparison of the closing of the American and South African frontiers. . . . Gump has performed a valuable service by showing that the events surrounding Little Big Horn and Isandhlwana were comparable incidents in a global narrative.andrdquo;andmdash;Journal of Social Historyand#160;andldquo;Informative to both specialist and general readers.andrdquo;andmdash;American Historical Reviewand#160;
Review
andquot;An intriguing book which opens the doors for all manner of comparative studies, and thereby suggests that the process of interaction between indigenous peoples and imperial interlopers is much the same across the world. . . . an interesting and thought-provoking book.andquot;andmdash;Soldiers of the Queen
Review
"Wonderfully written and an absolute joy to read. Its presentation is direct, detailed, and leaves the reader wanting more. Most notably, the book represents not only a significant addition to Cherokee history but also to studies in print culture."—Gary C. Cheek Jr., American Indian Quarterly
Review
"Denson's study is fresh in its attention to detail and nuance. . . . [The] work is an excellent contribution to scholarship and should be essential for anyone interested in the history of the Cherokees and U.S. Indian affairs."—Steven C. Hahn, American Historical Review
Review
"Denson's study is a powerful reminder that there were realistic and plausible alternatives to the destructive policies of the federal government. As Cherokee politicians recognized, it was entirely possible to construct a federal-tribal relationship in the nineteenth century that preserved Indian sovereignty. It is laudable that Denson has finally given their views serious scholarly attention."—Claudio Saunt, Journal of Southern History
Review
"Andrew Denson does what few historians do in Demanding the Cherokee Nation: He takes Indians at their word, adding much to the short historiography of native intellectual history."—Richard Mize, The Chronicles of Oklahoma
Review
"Well written and rooted in appropriate scholarship, Densons intellectual history of Cherokee political thinking makes an important contribution to the study of Cherokee experience and federal Indian policy."—Walter H. Conser Jr., Journal of American History
Review
"A well-written and important work that examines nineteenth-century U.S. Indian policy from the Cherokees perspective. . . . Every college library should own this book, and students of nineteenth-century U.S. history and Native American studies should give it a high priority on their reading lists."—Wendy St. Jean, North Carolina Historical Review
Synopsis
During the century following George Washingtonand#8217;s presidency, the United States fought at least forty wars with various Indian tribes. Nichols writes about the fights between the United States and the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware tribes in the Ohio Valley, the Creek in Alabama, the Arikara in South Dakota, the Sauk and Fox in Illinois and Wisconsin, the Dakota Sioux in Minnesota, the Cheyenne and Arapaho in Colorado, the Apache in New Mexico and Arizona, and the Nez Perce in Oregon and Idaho.
Synopsis
Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for the Salish Kootenai College Press
Lori Lambert (Miand#8217;kmaq/Abenaki) examines the problems that researchers encounter when adjusting research methodologies in the behavioral sciences to Native values and tribal community life. In addition to surveying the literature with an emphasis on Native authors, she has also interviewed a sampling of indigenous people in Australia, northern Canada, and Montanaand#8217;s Flathead Indian Reservation.
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Members of four indigenous communities speak about what they expect from researchers who come into their communities. Their voices and stories provide a conceptual framework for non-indigenous researchers who anticipate doing research with indigenous peoples in the social, behavioral, or environmental sciences. This conceptual framework created by indigenous stories similarly provides a framework for hope and empowerment as indigenous communities endeavor to pass on their values and stories to future generations.
and#160;
Indigenous research methodologies developed from stories told by elders help researchers to both respect the unique character of Native communities and contribute to their healing and empowerment. Indigenous research as such, however, is not a new phenomenon. Indigenous story keepers have always, through careful observation, articulated in their stories how their world works, thereby also preserving knowledge of their communityand#8217;s past.
and#160;
Lori Lambert is a member of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe of Vermont and a descendant of the Miand#8217;kmaq/Huron Wendot. For the last twenty years she has taught at Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana. Lambert is the founder of the American Indigenous Research Association.and#160;
Synopsis
In 1876 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors annihilated Custerandrsquo;s Seventh Cavalryand#160;at Little Bighorn. Three years later and half a world away, a British force was wiped out by Zulu warriors at Isandhlwana in South Africa. In both cases the total defeat of regular army troops by forces regarded as undisciplined barbarian tribesmen stunned an imperial nation.
Although the similarities between the two frontier encounters have long been noted, James O. Gumpandrsquo;s book The Dust Rose Like Smoke is the first to scrutinize them in a comparative context. andldquo;This study issues a challenge to American exceptionalism,andrdquo; he writes. Viewing both episodes as part of a global pattern of intensified conflict in the latter 1800s resulting from Western domination over a vast portion of the globe, Gumpandrsquo;s comparative study persuasively traces the origins and aftermath of both episodes.
He examines the complicated ways in which Lakota and Zulu leadership sought to protect indigenous interests while Western leadership calculated their subjugation to imperial authority.and#160;
The second edition includes a new preface from the author, revised and expanded chapters, and an interview with Leonard Little Finger (great-great-grandson of Ghost Dance leader Big Foot), whose story connects Wounded Knee and Nelson Mandela.
Synopsis
Demanding the Cherokee Nation examines nineteenth-century Cherokee political rhetoric in reassessing an enigma in American Indian history: the contradiction between the sovereignty of Indian nations and the political weakness of Indian communities. Drawing from a rich collection of petitions, appeals, newspaper editorials, and other public records, Andrew Denson describes the ways in which Cherokees represented their people and their nation to non-Indians after their forced removal to Indian Territory in the 1830s. He argues that Cherokee writings on nationhood document a decades-long effort by tribal leaders to find a new model for American Indian relations in which Indian nations could coexist with a modernizing United States.
Most non-Natives in the nineteenth century assumed that American development and progress necessitated the end of tribal autonomy, and that at best the Indian nation was a transitional state for Native people on the path to assimilation. As Denson shows, however, Cherokee leaders articulated a variety of ways in which the Indian nation, as they defined it, belonged in the modern world. Tribal leaders responded to developments in the United States and adapted their defense of Indian autonomy to the great changes transforming American life in the middle and late nineteenth century, notably also providing cogent new justification for Indian nationhood within the context of emergent American industrialization.
About the Author
Lori Lambert, PhD,and#160;is a member of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe of Vermont and a descendant of the Miand#8217;kmaq/Huron Wendot. For the last twenty years she has taught at Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana. Lambert is the founder of the American Indigenous Research Association.and#160;
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