This book covers a critical event in U.S. history: the period of Indian removal and resistance from 1817 to 1839, documenting the Cherokee experience as well as Jacksonian policy and Native-U.S. relations. This book provides an outstanding resource that introduces readers to Indian removal and resistance, and supports high school curricula as well as the National Standards for U.S. History (Era 4: Expansion and Reform). Focusing specifically on the Trail of Tears and the experiences of the Cherokee Nation while also covering earlier events and the aftermath of removal, the clearly written, topical chapters follow the events as they unfolded in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as the New England region and Washington, DC. Written by a tribal council representative of the Cherokee Nation, this book offers the most current perspectives, incorporating key issues of assimilation, sovereignty, and Cherokee resistance and resilience throughout. The text also addresses important topics that predate removal in the 19th century, such as the first treaty between the Cherokees and Great Britain in 1721, the French and Indian Wars, the American Revolution, proclamation of Cherokee nationality in the 1791 Treaty of Holston, and the U.S. Constitution. Written by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, the volume provides current, informed perspectives on the Cherokee experience Provides biographical sketches that introduce the reader to the key players on all sides of the event Explains how intensified contact with Europeans through trading relationships and developing technological dependency changed Cherokee society and created a new "global economy" Supplies primary document excerpts that offer additional insight and perspective on historical events, incorporating legislation, petitions, newspaper articles, court decisions, letters, and treaties Examines a key curricular topic for high school and undergraduate student researchers-Indian removal and resistance in the 1800s Includes portraits of important figures, such as Major Ridge, John Ridge, and John Ross as well as maps of Cherokee territory in the southeast and routes of the Trail of Tears

A fascinating and important volume which brings together new perspectives on the objections to, and appropriation of Native American Spirituality. Native Americans and Canadians are largely romanticised or sidelined figures in modern society. Their spirituality has been appropriated on a relatively large scale by Europeans and non-Native Americans, with little concern for the diversity of Native American opinions. Suzanne Owen offers an insight into appropriation that will bring a new understanding and perspective to these debates.This important volume collects together these key debates from the last few years and sets them in context, analyses Native American objections to appropriations of their spirituality and examines 'New Age' practices based on Native American spirituality." The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality" includes the findings of fieldwork among the Mi'Kmaq of Newfoundland on the sharing of ceremonies between Native Americans and First Nations, which highlights an aspect of the debate that has been under-researched in both anthropology and religious studies: that Native American discourses about the breaking of 'protocols', rules on the participation and performance of ceremonies, is at the heart of objections to the appropriation of Native American spirituality.This groundbreaking new series offers original reflections on theory and method in the study of religions, and demonstrates new approaches to the way religious traditions are studied and presented.Studies published under its auspices look to clarify the role and place of Religious Studies in the academy, but not in a purely theoretical manner. Each study will demonstrate its theoretical aspects by applying them to the actual study of religions, often in the form of frontier research.

Akwesasne territory straddles the U.S.-Canada border in upstate New York, Ontario, and Quebec. In 1979, in the midst of a major conflict regarding self-governance, traditional Mohawks there asserted their sovereign rights to self-education. Concern over the loss of language and culture and clashes with the public school system over who had the right to educate their children sparked the birth of the Akwesasne Freedom School (AFS) and its grassroots, community-based approach. In Free to Be Mohawk, Louellyn White traces the history of the AFS, a tribally controlled school operated without direct federal, state, or provincial funding, and explores factors contributing to its longevity and its impact on alumni, students, teachers, parents, and staff. Through interviews, participant observations, and archival research, White presents an in-depth picture of the Akwesasne Freedom School as a model of Indigenous holistic education that incorporates traditional teachings, experiential methods, and language immersion. Alumni, parents, and teachers describe how the school has fostered a strong sense of what it is to be ""fully Mohawk."" White explores the complex relationship between language and identity and shows how AFS participants transcend historical colonization by negotiating their sense of self. According to Mohawk elder Sakokwenionkwas (Tom Porter), ""The prophecies say that the time will come when the grandchildren will speak to the whole world. The reason for the Akwesasne Freedom School is so the grandchildren will have something significant to say."" In a world where forced assimilation and colonial education have resulted in the loss or endangerment of hundreds of Indigenous languages, the Akwesasne Freedom School provides a cultural and linguistic sanctuary. White's timely study reminds readers, including the Canadian and U.S. governments, of the critical importance of an Indigenous nation's authority over the education of its children.

After the defeat of Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, June, 1876; thousands of Lakota Sioux went to Canada to escape the American army. Their leaders included Sitting Bull, Four Horns and the two famous Lakota chiefs with the name "Black Moon." Most returned to American reservations within 5 years; but over 200 stayed in Canada where their descendants live today. This is their story.

The Shelf2Life Native American Studies Collection is a unique set of pre-1923 materials that explore the characteristics and customs of North American Indians. From traditional songs and dance of the Apache and Navajo to the intricate patterns of Arapaho moccasins, these titles explore the symbolic meaning of Native American music and art. Complex relationships between tribal groups and government are also examined, highlighting the historic struggle for land rights, while the retelling of ancient myths and legends emphasize a belief in the interconnection of humans and nature and provide readers with significant insight into a culture deeply rooted in spirituality. The Shelf2Life Native American Studies Collection provides an invaluable perspective into Native American culture and politics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The history of Native Americans in the U.S. South is a turbulent one, rife with conflict and inequality. Since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the fifteenth century, Native peoples have struggled to maintain their land, cultures, and ways of life. In We Will Always Be Here, contemporary tribal leaders, educators, and activists share their struggles for Indian identity, self-determination, and community development. Reflecting on such issues as poverty, education, racism, cultural preservation, and tribal sovereignty, the contributors to this volume offer a glimpse into the historical struggles of southern Native peoples, examine their present day efforts, and share their hopes for the future. They also share examples of cultural practices that have either endured or been revitalized. In a country that still faces challenges to civil rights and misconceptions about Indian identity and tribal sovereignty, this timely book builds a deeper understanding of modern Native peoples within a region where they are often overlooked.

"Oh God, here comes Esther Ross." Such was the greeting she received from members of the U.S. Congress during her repeated trips to the Capitol on behalf of Stillaguamish Indians. Tenacious and passionate, Esther Ross's refusal to abandon her cause resulted in federal recognition of the Stillaguamish Tribe in 1976. Her efforts on behalf of Pacific Northwest Indians at federal, state, and local levels led not only to the rebirth of the Stillaguamish but also to policy reforms affecting all Indian tribes.

In this rare, in-depth portrait of a contemporary American Indian woman, Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown document Ross's life and achievements. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Stillaguamish tribe, located on the Puget Sound in Washington State, had all but disappeared. With no organization or system of communication, tribal members dispersed. Desperate for help, surviving members asked Ross, a young, well-educated descendant of Stillaguamish and Norwegian heritage, to assist them in suing for lost land and government services. For fifty years, she waged a persistent campaign, largely self-staffed and self-funded. Despite personal problems, cultural barriers, and reluctance among some tribal members, Ross succeeded, but she was eventually forced from tribal leadership.

This volume provides insight into the family life of Native Americans of the northeast quadrant of the North American continent and those living in the adjacent coastal and piedmont regions. These Native Americans were among the most familiar to Euro-colonials for more than two centuries. From the tribes of the northeast woodlands came "great hunters, fishermen, farmers and fighters, as well as the most powerful and sophisticated Indian nation north of Mexico [the Iroquois Confederacy].

Representative Native American religions and rituals are introduced to readers in a way that respects the individual traditions as more than local curiosities or exotic rituals, capturing the flavor of the living, modern traditions, even as commonalities between and among traditions are explored and explained. This general introduction offers wide-ranging coverage of the major factors-geography, history, religious behavior, and religious ideology (theology)-analyzing select traditions that can be dealt with, to varying degrees, on a contemporary basis. As current interest surrounding Native American studies continues to grow, attention has often been given to the various religious beliefs, rituals, and customs of the diverse traditions across the country. But most treatments of the subject are cursory and encyclopedic and do not provide readers with the flavor of the living, modern traditions. Here, representative Native American religions and rituals are introduced to readers in a way that respects the individual traditions as more than local curiosities or exotic rituals, even as commonalities between and among traditions are explored and explained. This general introduction offers wide-ranging coverage of the major factors-geography, history, religious behavior, and religious ideology (theology)-analyzing select traditions that can be dealt with, to varying degrees, on a contemporary basis. Covering such diverse ceremonies as the Muskogee (Creek) Busk, the Northwest Coast Potlatch, the Navajo and Apache menarche rituals, and the Anishnabe (Great Lakes area) Midewiwin seasonal gatherings, Paper takes a comparative approach, based on the study of human religion in general, and the special place of Native American religions within it. His book is informed by perspective gained through nearly fifty years of formal study and several decades of personal involvement, treating readers to a glimpse of the living religious traditions of Native American communities across the country.

Before American History juxtaposes Mexico City's famous carved Sun Stone with the mounded earthworks found throughout the Midwestern states of the U.S. to examine the project of settler nationalism from the 1780s to the 1840s in two North American republics usually studied separately. As the U.S. and Mexico transformed from European colonies into independent nations-and before war scarred them both-antiquarians and historians compiled and interpreted archives meant to document America's Indigenous pasts. These settler-colonial understandings of North America's past deliberately misappropriated Indigenous histories and repurposed them and their material objects as "American antiquities," thereby writing Indigenous pasts out of U.S. and Mexican national histories and national lands and erasing and denigrating Native peoples living in both nascent republics.Christen Mucher creatively recovers the Sun Stone and mounded earthworks as archives of nationalist power and Indigenous dispossession as well as objects that are, at their material base, produced by Indigenous people but settler controlled and settler interpreted. Her approach renders visible the foundational methodologies, materials, and mythologies that created an American history out of and on top of Indigenous worlds and facilitated Native dispossession continent-wide. By writing Indigenous actors out of national histories, Mexican and U.S. elites also wrote them out of their lands, a legacy of erasure and removal that continues when we repeat these eighteenth- and nineteenth-century settler narratives and that reverberates in discussions of immigration, migration, and Nativism today.

Originally published in 1922, this early work on anthropology is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. It details the lives and customs of the Trobriand who live on an island chain in the western Pacific and is a highly regarded study of their tribal culture. This is a fascinating work and is thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in ethnology. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.