A Companion to American Indian History
captures the thematic breadth of Native American history. Twenty-five
original essays written by leading scholars, both American Indian
and non-American Indian, bring a comprehensive perspective to a history
that in the past has been related exclusively by Euro-Americans.
The essays cover a wide range of Indian
experiences and practices, including contacts with non-Indians, religion,
family, economy, law, education, gender, and culture. They reflect new
approaches to Native America drawn from environmental, comparative, and gender
history in their exploration of compelling questions regarding performance,
identity, cultural brokerage, race and blood, captivity, adoption, and slavery.
Each chapter also encourages further reading by including a carefully selected
bibliography.
Intended for students, scholars, and general
readers of American Indian history, this timely book is the ideal guide to
current and future research.
Content
List of Contributors
Introduction
1 Historiography
PART ONE: CONTACTS
2 First Contacts
3 Wag the Imperial Dog: Indians and Overseas
Empires in North America, 1650–1776
4 Health, Disease, and Demography
PART TWO: NATIVE PRACTICE AND BELIEF
5 Native American Systems of Knowledge
6 Native American Spirituality: History,
Theory, and Reformulation
7 Indians and Christianity
8 Kinship, Family Kindreds, and Community
9 American Indian Warfare: The Cycles of
Conflict and the Militarization of Native North America
PART THREE: LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, and EXPRESSION
10 Languages: Linguistic Change and the Study
of Indian Languages from Colonial Times to the Present
11 Performative Traditions in American Indian
History
12 Indigenous Art: Creating Value and Sharing
Beauty
13 Native American Literatures
14 Wanted: More Histories of Indian Identity
PART FOUR: EXCHANGE AND SOCIAL RELATIONS
15 Labor and Exchange in American Indian
History
16 The Nature of Conquest: Indians, Americans,
and Environmental History
17 Gender in Native America
18 Métis, Mestizo, and Mixed-Blood
19 Transforming Outsiders: Captivity, Adoption,
and Slavery Reconsidered
20 Translation and Cultural Brokerage
PART FIVE: GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
21 Federal and State Policies and American
Indians
22 Native Americans and the United States,
Canada, and Mexico
23 American Indian Education: by Indians versus
for Indians
24 Indian Law, Sovereignty, and State Law:
Native People and the Law
25 Sovereignty
Bibliography
Index
