In nineteen interrelated chapters, Weaver presents a range of experiences shared by native peoples in the Americas, from the distant past to the uncertain future. He examines Indian creative output, from oral tradition to the postmodern wordplay of Gerald Vizenor, and brings to light previously overlooked texts. Weaver also tackles up-to-the-minute issues, including environmental crises, Native American spirituality, repatriation of Indian remains and cultural artifacts, and international human rights.
Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall’s foundational opinions in the early nineteenth century and continuing today in the judgments of the Rehnquist Court, Williams shows how undeniably racist language and precedent are still used in Indian law to justify the denial of important rights of property, self-government, and cultural survival to Indians. Building on the insights of Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, and Frantz Fanon, Williams argues that racist language has been employed by the courts to legalize a uniquely American form of racial dictatorship over Indian tribes by the U.S. government.
Through both his fiction and non-fiction writing, James Welch gives voice to the history, heritage, and cultural identity of the American Indian. This companion provides a fascinating exploration of the man, his writing, and the impact and influence of his literary output. With information based on a series of personal interviews conducted for this book, the biographical chapter offers an insightful account of Welch's life as a Blackfoot Indian, and as a poet and novelist.
Now in a newly updated and expanded second edition, "A To Z Of American Indian Women" by author and biographer Liz Sonneborn is an encyclopedic compendium of succinct biographies of 152 Native American women who have distinguished themselves in a range of professions and careers. Included are brief but informative profiles of activists, educators, potters, musicians, artists, physicians, politicians, lawyers, entertainers, and others.
Tens of thousands of Indian children filed through the gates of government schools to be trained as United States citizens. Part of a late-nineteenth-century campaign to eradicate Native cultures and communities, these institutions became arenas where whites debated the terms of Indian citizenship, but also where Native peoples resisted the power of white schooling and claimed new skills to protect and redefine tribal and Indian identities. In White Man’s Club, schools for Native children are examined within the broad framework of race relations in the United States for the first time.
Jacqueline Fear-Segal analyzes multiple schools and their differing agendas and engages with the conflicting white discourses of race that underlay their pedagogies. She argues that federal schools established to Americanize Native children did not achieve their purpose; instead they progressively racialized American Indians. A far-reaching and bold account of the larger issues at stake, White Man’s Club challenges previous studies for overemphasizing the reformers’ overtly optimistic assessment of the Indians’ capacity for assimilation and contends that a covertly racial agenda characterized this educational venture from the start. Asking the reader to consider the legacy of nineteenth-century acculturation policies, White Man’s Club incorporates the life stories and voices of Native students and traces the schools’ powerful impact into the twenty-first century. Fear-Segal draws upon a rich array of source material. Traditional archival research is interwoven with analysis of maps, drawings, photographs, the built environment, and supplemented by oral and family histories. Creative use of new theoretical and interpretive perspectives brings fresh insights to the subject matter.
