Good books on Native American History

I am looking to find books on Native American history. I know Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I will probably start with that.

What other books are good on this subject?

Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars - Robert V. Remeni

It’s a little more nuanced than “white men are evil.”

For some cultural history try: The Southeastern Indians by Charles Hudson.

Native American history is a very broad topic, can you narrow it a bit? What specific People are you curious about? What period?

As a Native American, one would think that I would have been made aware of the “white men are evil” proclamation. Somehow I missed that.

Is there a particular time frame you are looking at, or particular geographical area? “Native American history” covers at least12,000 years before Europeans ever got here (or, alternately 25,000 to 50,000 years, depending on the school of thought you belong to), and the area from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, and with a language/cultural diversity greater than Europe. If you want a general survey that covers “all of the above” then you might look at college textbooks for Anthropology courses. If you want something a little more focused, please elaborate.

1491 by Charles Mann

Perhaps something written by an Indian?

My main time frame is around 1600-now in North America.

I also would not mind reading about South and Central America since I know basically zero about those groups.

Red Carolinians by Chapman J. Milling is a very comprehensive look at the history of the Native peoples of the Carolina region, and is very exhaustively researched. The copy I have is the second edition (1969, University of South Carolina Press) but it was originally published in 1940 by the University of North Carolina Press.

I recommend it highly. Links to botheditions appear available online.

Did you see Dances With Wolves? Because that just about sums it up. Just one example of the meme. :slight_smile:

Did you guys use ESP to find out I live in NC? :slight_smile:

We just assumed.

For a bit of fun ( bitchy academic fun ), try reading The Invasion of America:* Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest* by Francis Jennings and New England Frontier:* Puritans and Indians 1620-1675*, revised edition ( must be the revised edition from 1979, wherein he responds to Jenning’s criticisms ) by Alden T. Vaughn. Two dueling views of the same period, wherein each barely conceals their naked contempt for the analyses of the other :p.

I believe both are actually a bit dated now in academic terms - Vaughn’s original edition was from the mid-1960’s, Jennings came along to challenge it in the mid-1970’s. But it is an unusually open window into the kind of debates that can rage in academic circles.

You might try On the Rez by Ian Frazier. It combines contemporary and historical topics about the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota. It also reads more like a novel, although it is an essay. It’s nonfiction, but more in the vein of a memoir than an academic history book.

A very good general overview is 500 Nations, out of print but available at most libraries and many used book websites and stores. It has an accompanying DVD series that got raves (though personally I wasn’t that crazy about it because I didn’t like the way it was organized).

You’ll quickly learn that the Navaho and the Shoshone and the Creeks and the Cherokee and the Utes and the Sauks and the Chumash and the Powhatan and the Narraganset and the Inuit etc etc ad nauseum were far more distinct from one another than the Viennese were from the English were from the Spanish were from the Swedish etc etc ad nauseum. When that happen post here for recs on particular tribes. (Most of my own research interests is post-contact Indians of the Southeast but there are people here devoted to all manner of regions and times.)

Okla Hannali, by R. A. Lafferty, is a mixture of fiction, folktales, and history. It focuses mainly on the experience of the Choctaws after they were deported to Oklahoma in the nineteenth century, but also touches on the experiences of other tribes. The writing is outstanding.

Another handy reference is Indian Wars by Robert M. Utley and Wilcomb E. Washburn, which is a comprehensive work on all the wars and conflicts between whites and Indians in the US from the moment of English colonization forward.

A good reference work is the Handbook of North American Indians edited by William Sturtevant and published by the Smithsonian. At about 20 large volumes (some yet to be published), it’s not the sort of thing you want to read cover-to-cover, but it’s my go-to source for answering specific questions. A good academic library should have copies in either the reference section or the government documents section.

Got 500 Nations and 1491 from the library, they both look very good.

Watch For Me on The Mountain - Forrest Carter - a novel about Geronimo’s life and escapades.

Kitchi Gami: Life Among The Lake Superior Ojibway - J G Kohl - a historical account of a man who spent a lot of time with the Ojibway tribes.