Bureau of Indian Affairs by
Bureau of Indian Affairs tells the fascinating and important story of an agency that currently oversees U.S. policies affecting over 584 recognized tribes, over 326 federally reserved lands, and over 5 million Native American residents. Written by one of our foremost Native American scholars, this insider's view of the BIA looks at the policies and the personalities that shaped its history, and by extension, nearly two centuries of government-tribal relations. Coverage includes the agency's forerunners and founding, the years of relocation and outright war, the movement to encourage Indian urbanization and assimilation, and the civil rights era surge of Indian activism. A concluding chapter looks at the modern BIA and its role in everything from land allotments and Indian boarding schools to tribal self-government, mineral rights, and the rise of the Indian gaming industry.
Trail of Tears: A Native American Documentary Collection by
Trail of tears : Cherokee legacy: Documents the forced removal in 1838 of the Cherokee Nation from the southeastern United States to Oklahoma. Shows the suffering endured by the Cherokees as they lost their land and the difficult conditions they endured on the trail. Describes how thousands of Cherokees died during the Trail of Tears, nearly a quarter of the nation, including most of their children and elders.
Black Indians: Explores issues of racial identity between the mixed-descent peoples of both Native American and African American heritage. James Earl Jones is himself a Black Indian.
Native American healing in the 21st century: Learn from today's respected physicians the crossover of ancient native remedies to present-day medical practices. Explore for healing plants and herbs. Learn from tribal elders traditional healing practices and philosophies. Discover the contents of a recently found 350-year-old medicine bag. Compare the similarities of Native American and Chinese healing.
Our spirits don't speak English: Imagine you are a child, taken from your home, your family, taken from everything you know. In 1869, the U.S. government enacted a policy of educating Native American children in the ways of western society. By the late 1960's, more than 100,000 had been forced to attend Indian Boarding School.
Trail of Tears by
Discusses the American government's nineteenth-century policy of Indian removal, in which over fifty tribes were relocated from their homelands to the West, from the perspective of the Native Americans.
Uncommon Defense by
In the spring of 1832, when the Indian warrior Black Hawk and a thousand followers marched into Illinois to reoccupy lands earlier ceded to American settlers, the U.S. Army turned to rival tribes for military support. Elements of the Menominee, Dakota, Potawatomi, and Ho Chunk tribes willingly allied themselves with the United States government against their fellow Native Americans in an uncommon defense of their diverse interests. As the Black Hawk War came only two years after the passage of the Indian Removal Act and is widely viewed as a land grab by ravenous settlers, the military participation of these tribes seems bizarre. What explains this alliance?
In order to grasp Indian motives, John Hall explores their alliances in earlier wars with colonial powers as well as in intertribal antagonisms and conflicts. In the crisis of 1832, Indians acted as they had traditionally, leveraging their relationship with a powerful ally to strike tribal enemies, fulfill important male warrior expectations, and pursue political advantage and material gain. However, times had changed and, although the Indians achieved short-term objectives, they helped create conditions that permanently changed their world.
Providing a rare view of Indian attitudes and strategies in war and peace, Hall deepens our understanding of Native Americans and the complex roles they played in the nation's history. More broadly, he demonstrates the risks and lessons of small wars that entail an "uncommon defense" by unlikely allies in pursuit of diverse, even conflicting, goals.
Life of Black Hawk by
This story is told in the words of a tragic figure in American history - a hook-nosed, hollow-cheeked old Sauk warrior who lived under four flags while the Mississippi Valley was being wrested from his people.
The author is Black Hawk himself - once pursued by an army whose members included Captain Abraham Lincoln and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis. Perhaps no Indian ever saw so much of American expansion or fought harder to prevent that expansion from driving his people to exile and death.