Books:
Axtell, James. "Natives and Newcomers: the Cultural Origins of North America." New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Professor of History at the College of William and Mary
“The essays in Natives and Newcomers….follow a roughly chronological
approach. The essays are grouped around topics like contact,
trade, conversion, conflicts, and consequences. The basic
perspective of the essays works to bend interactions between Natives
and newcomers toward a more refined understanding of how the newcomers
came out at the end of the contact experience. Axtell makes an
important distinction between adaptive changes that resulted from
settlers copying Native behaviors like warfare tactics or borrowing
things like snowshoes and corn and negative changes which occurred
among the settlers simply because the Natives stood in their way.
Adaptive changes were important, but, he argues, only insofar as they
enabled settlers to defeat their Native opponents. Negative changes
were far more crucial because in the existence of the Other settlers
defined for themselves new notions of savagery and civility and adopted
the "fortress mentality" that drives American foreign policy to this
day.” (Adapted from a review by James Taylor Carson, published in
the American Indian Culture and Research Journal 25, no. 2 (2001): 191-3.)
Calloway, Colin G. "First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History." Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004.
Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College
This book looks at some of the available materials used in researching
Native American History. Topics include: Ancient North
America, the Northeastern Woodlands, the Southeastern Woodlands,
California, the Mowachaht and Captain Cook, 1778, the Northwest Coast,
the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Canadian Plains and the American
West.
Calloway, Colin G. "One Vast Winter Count: the Native American West Before Lewis and Clark." Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.
Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College
“Calloway draws on tribal histories, anthropology, and archaeology, as
well as traditional historical sources, to present this useful and
insightful overview of vibrant nations actively charting their futures
in the time of great change and tremendous challenge before Lewis and
Clark's Corps of Discovery set forth in 1803. In addition to corn
agriculture and its impact upon prehistoric populations, the author
discusses the later historic shift from bow and arrow to firearms, the
incorporation of horses into Plains Indian life, and the increased
acquisition of European trade goods and culture. Colonial European
powers and their interaction with Native populations, including the
Spanish colonies in the Pueblos and California and the French and
British rivalry, are explored in depth, though throughout the Native
nations remain the primary focus.” (From a review by Nathan E.
Bender, published in the Library Journal 128, no. 14 (Sept. 2003): 183.)
Dowd, Gregory Evans. "A Spirited Resistance: the Northern
American Indian Struggle for Unity," 1745-1815. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Professor of History and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
“This is a study of Native American resistance to white colonization
from the French and Indian Wars to the War of 1812. According to
Dowd, religious leaders, especially among the Delaware, Shawnee,
Cherokee, and Creek, developed over seven decades an ideology of
pan-Indian unity based on the beliefs that Indians and whites had each
been given their own unique God and that the land could not be sold
because it belonged to all Indians. Native American prophets' thus
linked in common cause Indians from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of
Mexico during the Pontiac War, the American Revolution, and the Ohio
Confederacy of the 1790s." (Abstract from a review by R. L. Haan,
published in Choice 30 (Sept. 1992): 204.)
Gutierrez, Ramon A. "When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went
Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico,"
1500-1846. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Professor of History and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego
“Gutierrez's study explores the impact of the Spanish conquest of New
Mexico on the Pueblo Indians. His declared central theme is to show how
marriage structured inequality - sexual and racial - in the different
layers of colonial society. [His study] suggests that before colonial
contact Indian women had more economic, political and sexual power in
matriarchal societies where relatively egalitarian gender relations
existed. Another theme is resistance to European colonization and [his]
study makes a valuable contribution to the growing literature on
women's resistance under slavery, forced labour and colonial rule in
Africa, Asia and America.” (Adapted from a review by Barbara
Bush-Slimani, published in History Today 42, no. 8 (Aug. 1992): 58-60.)
Richter, Daniel K. "Facing East from Indian Country: a Native History of Early America" Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania
“Richter here offers a masterly work that eschews the long-standing
perception that Native Americans were nothing more than marginalized
bystanders as Europeans colonized North America. Focusing on the period
between the 15th and 18th centuries, the author instead shows that
Native American communities adapted to the many stresses introduced by
the arrival of the Europeans and were active participants in creating a
new way of life on the continent.” (Abstract from a review by John
Burch, published in the Library Journal 126, no. 17 (Oct. 2001): 93.)
White, Richard. "The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and
Republics in the Great Lakes Region," 1650-1815. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Professor of History at the University of Washington
“This book seeks to step outside the simple stories of Indian/white
relations--stories of conquest and assimilation and stories of cultural
persistence. It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and
common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each
other as alien, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650 and 1815
they constructed a common, mutually comprehensible world in the region
around the Great Lakes that the French called the "Pays d'en haut".
Here the older worlds of the Algonquins and various Europeans
overlapped, and their mixture created new systems of meaning and of
exchange. Finally, the book tells of the breakdown of accommodation and
common meanings and the recreation of the Indians as alien and exotic.” (Abstract from the book cover)
Articles:
Edmunds, R. David. “Native Americans, New Voices: American Indian History," 1895-1995.” American Historical Review 100, no. 3 (June 1995): 717-41.
Professor of History at Texas Christian University
“Discusses the Native American role as both a facilitator and an
opponent of such expansion during the celebration of the frontier and
alleged march of American civilization across the continent.
Transformation of the Native American during the 1960s; Role of Indians
in the formation of American societies; Issue of who would exercise the
appropriate `Indian’ voice.” (Abstract from Inspire)
Access: This article is available online through Inspire
Fixco, Donald L. “Ethics and Responsibilities in Writing American Indian History.” American Indian Quarterly 20, no. 1 (Winter 1996): 29-40.
Professor of History at Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo
“Focuses on the professional ethics and scholarly responsibilities in
writing American Indian history. Exploitation of the American Indian;
Provision of arguments to convince persons to uphold their ethical and
scholarly responsibilities.” (Abstract from Inspire)
Access: This article is available online through Inspire
Iverson, Peter. “American Indian History as a Continuing Story.” Historian 66, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 524-32.
Professor at Arizona State University
“Focuses on the role of Indian historians in the narration of the
American Indian history. Provisions of the General Allotment Act of
1887 crafted by Massachusetts Senator Henry Dawes on Indian
reservations; Factors affecting the maturation of western North
American Indian history; Comments from Chief Wilma Mankiller on the
writings of Vine Deloria regarding indigenous people.” (Abstract
from Inspire)
Access: This article is available online through Inspire
Krupat, Arnold. “American Histories, Native American Narratives.” Early American Literature 30, no. 2 (Sept. 1995): 165-75.
Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College
“Discusses the disparity in Native American and Euro-american
conceptions of history in their narratives. Presumed timeless or static
quality of the lives of Native Americans; Native people's history and
historical sense; Foregrounding of history's narrative and
interpretative dimension; Multicultural construction of the historical
canon; Domination of quasi-scientific notions of fact and truth.” (Abstract from Inspire)
Access: This article is available online through Inspire
Lyon, William H. “The Navajos in the American Historical Imagination, 1868-1900.” Ethnohistory 45, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 237-76.
Professor of History at Northern Arizona University
“Discusses America's imaginative perceptions of the Navajos, native
American people, during the period 1868-1900, emphasizing America's
efforts to improve the barbaric lifestyle practiced by the Navajos. Why
Anglo-Americans believed that Navajos violated the principles of law
and order; Reference to a recession by the Navajos in the period 1863;
Contention that the Navajos would defend their rights at the slightest
provocation; Factors supporting this contention.” (Abstract from
Inspire)
Access: This article is available online through Inspire
Meyer, Jon’a F. and Gloria Bogdan. “Co-habitation and
Co-operation: Some Intersection Between Native American and
Euroamerican Legal Systems in the Nineteenth Century.” ATQ 15, no. 4 (Dec. 2001): 257-74.
Jon'a Meyer is a professor of Sociology at Rutgers
University. Gloria Bogdan is a professor of Afro-Ethnic Studies
at California State University, Fullerton.
“Presents information on the intersections between Native
American and Euro-american legal systems in the 19th century. Benefits
from focusing on the transformation of Native American to Euro-american
justice; Progression of tribal justice systems in the 19th century;
Discussion on Osage tribe as a case study in the intersection of Native
American and Euro-american legal systems.” (Abstract from Inspire)
Access: This article is available online through Inspire
Recommended Sources:
National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution)
4th Street and Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, DC 20560
202.633.1000
website: http://www.nmai.si.edu/
Conner Prairie
13400 Allisonville Road
Fishers, IN 46038
317.776.6000 or 800.966.1836
website: http://www.connerprairie.org/HistoricAreas/lenapeCamp.asp (1816 Lenape Indian Camp)
Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art
500 West Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317.636.9378
website: http://www.eiteljorg.org/ejm/ep&e.asp (Education, Programs & Events)
Historic Forks of the Wabash
P.O. Box 261 – Junction of US 24 and IN 9
Huntington, IN 46750
260.356.1903
website: http://www.historicforks.org
Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology
402 West Washington Street, W274
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317.232.1646
website: http://www.in.gov/dnr/historic/archmonth/pdf/earlypeoples.pdf (Early Peoples of Indiana)
Indiana Historical Bureau Indiana State Library and Historical Building
140 North Senate Avenue
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
317.232.2535
website: http://www.statelib.lib.in.us/www/ihb/amerindians/exhibit2004.html (American Indians in Indiana: In Their Own Words)
