African American women enslaved by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Creek Nations led lives ranging from utter subjection to recognized kinship. Regardless of status, during Removal, they followed the Trail of Tears in the footsteps of the slaveholders, suffering the same life-threatening hardships and poverty. As if Removal to Indian Territory weren't cataclysmic enough, the Civil War shattered the worlds of these slave women even more, scattering families, destroying property, and disrupting social and family relationships. Suddenly free, they had nowhere to turn. Freedwomen found themselves negotiating new lives within a labyrinth of federal and tribal oversight, Indian resentment, and intruding entrepreneurs and settlers. Remarkably, they reconstructed their families and marshaled the skills to fashion livelihoods in a burgeoning capitalist environment. They sought education and forged new relationships with immigrant black women and men, managing to establish a foundation for survival. Linda Williams Reese is the first to trace the harsh and often bitter journey of these women from arrival in Indian Territory to free-citizen status in 1890. In doing so, she establishes them as pioneers of the American West equal to their Indian and other Plains sisters.

Native American Sovereignty offers a sampling of different types of political, economic and social sovereignty, conveying the diverse opinions about sovereignty among Native American and non-Native American scholars. This collection focuses on how Federal policy fits into the Native American ideal for sovereignty.

Series Information:
Native Americans and the Law

Now it is time for you to read the letters of Mari Sandoz. If it has been a clear summer day and it is near sundown, take this book and a cool drink outside and soak in the wisdom of a writer with a cause. --John R. Wunder, from the forewordAuthor Mari Sandoz was as passionate about Plains peoples as she was about language and literary acclaim. That the mastery of Crazy Horse's biographer spilled into her zealous advocacy for Native Americans is scarcely surprising. An avid letter writer, Sandoz kept carbons of everything. Fortunately these came into the Sandoz Collection at the University of Nebraska Archives, organized by Kimberli A. Lee, foremost expert on Sandoz's writings.Though Sandoz richly deserves attention, recent scholarship is scant. In arranging and analyzing this correspondence, Lee reinstates Sandoz as one of the most significant non-Native chroniclers and advocates for Plains Indian cultures. There is much here for historians and other scholars of American Indian, Great Plains, rhetorical, and women's studies. Yet Sandoz's wider fan base should not be surprised to hearken to a voice and ardor they will find well familiar.

Implementing many of the most cutting-edge trends in contemporary indigenous studies, these seventeen original essays tackle indigenous identity, cultural perseverance, economic development, and urbanization in a wide array of American Indian and First Nations populations. The authors present and preserve indigenous voices and carefully consider native worldviews throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and also address mainstream policies that influenced Native peoples in various eras and locales. The essays range from the specific--single peoples living in well-defined spaces during discrete time periods, to the expansive--broad comparative and international discussions. Yet the volume's diversity extends beyond its topical breadth. The contributors themselves--many of whom are Native Americans or members of other First Nations--peer through scholarly lenses polished in Canada, Denmark, Finland, England, Sweden, and the United States. The ensuing synthesis helps to clarify the modern complexities of analyzing indigenous pasts."In this innovative work, scholars from around the world, working in an array of disciplines, re-examine issues vital to Indigenous North America. John Wunder and Kurt Kinbacher have done an admirable job of assembling a collection of writers who span the arc from established and well respected academics like Peter Iverson and Susan Miller to new and exciting thinkers like Miia Halme and Sami Lakomaki. Reconfigurations of Native North America is blazing a new path and expanding the ways in which we consider Indigenous issues in the 20th century."--Akim D. Reinhardt, Towson University

Throughout its existence the Federal District Court of Nebraska has echoed the dynamics of its time, reflecting the concerns, interests, and passions of the people who have made this state their home. Echo of Its Time explores the court's development, from its inception in 1867 through 1933, tracing the careers of its first four judges: Elmer Dundy, William Munger, Thomas Munger (no relation), and Joseph Woodrough, whose rulings addressed an array of issues and controversies echoing macro-level developments within the state, nation, and world. Echo of Its Time both informs and entertains while using the court's operations as a unique and accessible prism through which to explore broader themes in the history of the state and the nation. The book explores the inner workings of the court through Thomas Munger's personal correspondence, as well as the court's origins and growing influence under the direction of its legendary first judge, Elmer Dundy. Dundy handled many notable and controversial matters and made significant decisions in the field of Native American law, including Standing Bear v. Crook and Elk v. Wilkins. From the turn of the century through 1933 the court's docket reflected the dramatic and rapid changes in state, regional, and national dynamics, including labor disputes and violence, political corruption and Progressive Era reform efforts, conflicts between cattle ranchers and homesteaders, wartime sedition and "slacker" prosecutions, criminal enterprises, and the endless battles between government agents and bootleggers during Prohibition.

Mari Sandoz, born on Mirage Flats, south of Hay Springs, Nebraska, on May 11, 1896, was the eldest daughter of Swiss immigrants. She experienced firsthand the difficulties and pleasures of the family’s remote plains existence and early on developed a strong desire to write. Her keen eye for detail combined with meticulous research enabled her to become one of the most valued authorities of her time on the history of the plains and the culture of Native Americans. Women in the Writings of Mari Sandoz is the first volume of the Sandoz Studies series, a collection of thematically grouped essays that feature writing by and about Mari Sandoz and her work. When Sandoz wrote about the women she knew and studied, she did not shy away from drawing attention to the sacrifices, hardships, and disappointments they endured to forge a life in the harsh plains environment. But she also wrote about moments of joy, friendship, and—for some—a connection to the land that encouraged them to carry on. The scholarly essays and writings of Sandoz contained in this book help place her work into broader contexts, enriching our understanding of her as an author and as a woman deeply connected to the Sandhills of Nebraska.  

In August of 1897, in the small village of Henna, Syria, eighteen miles from Damascus, Mohammed (Ed) Aryain was born. As far back as he could remember, Ed dreamed of moving to the United States. In the early twentieth century Syria still suffered from high taxation and control under the Ottoman Turks. Ed saw Syrians who had been to America returning home with gold watches and money to purchase land, and he vowed to do the same. Although his parents did not want him to go, eventually they relented and watched fifteen-year-old Ed begin a 120-mile walk to Beirut to board a steamship. He tells of his emotional first view of the Statue of the Liberty and of his traumatic passage through Ellis Island. Joining the network of Syrians who supported themselves by peddling dry goods, Ed traveled across the Great Plains. Later he rented storefronts in wild oil-boom towns in Oklahoma and Texas. Finally he married an American woman and settled in West Texas, living in Littlefield, Sudan, Brownfield, and finally in Seminole, where he operated his own store on the town square until 1952. But even after decades in the United States, a man never forgets his homeland, and after nearly fifty years in America Ed returned briefly to Syria to visit those who remained of the family he had left behind. Eddie and Jameil Aryain, Ed's two sons, have each written an afterword, providing their perspectives on this unique piece of Americana. " A] beautifully edited memoir . . . that] not only puts faces on Syrian emigrants but humanizes them as well" --Great Plains Quarterly J'Nell Pate is the author of six books, including, most recently America's Historic Stockyards: Livestock Hotels, and a weekly history column in her local newspaper. She lives in Azle, Texas.

Nebraska author Mari Sandoz remarked that most people see Nebraska as "that long flat state that sets between me and any place I want to go." If so, they're missing plenty, as this entertaining volume makes abundantly clear. Susan A. Wunder and John R. Wunder's new, expanded, and updated edition of Donald R. Hickey's classic account of defining Nebraska moments showcases triumph, tragedy, comedy, and accomplishments that could have happened nowhere else and that reveal the rich culture and history under the state's deceptively quiet surface. There are moments that shine--surviving the Oregon and Mormon trails; completing the Union Pacific Railroad; and winning national football championships, Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, and presidential nominations. There are also moments of darkness such as the murders of Crazy Horse, Malcolm X, and Brandon Teena; the lynchings of Will Brown and Juan Gonzalez; and the Blizzard of 1888. Together they evoke a dramatic history populated with the likes of Pedro Villasur, Willa Cather, and William Jennings Bryan. This new edition also mines Nebraska's most recent history, adding to the ever-changing, ever-intriguing picture of this Great Plains state.

African American women enslaved by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Creek Nations led lives ranging from utter subjection to recognized kinship. Regardless of status, during Removal, they followed the Trail of Tears in the footsteps of their slaveholders, suffering the same life-threatening hardships and poverty. As if Removal to Indian Territory weren't cataclysmic enough, the Civil War shattered the worlds of these slave women even more, scattering families, destroying property, and disrupting social and family relationships. Suddenly they were freed, but had nowhere to turn. Freedwomen found themselves negotiating new lives within a labyrinth of federal and tribal oversight, Indian resentment, and intruding entrepreneurs and settlers.

Some half million Chinese immigrants settled in the American West in the nineteenth century. In spite of their vital contributions to the economy in gold mining, railroad construction, the founding of small businesses, and land reclamation, the Chinese were targets of systematic political discrimination and widespread violence. This legal history of the Chinese experience in the American West, based on the author's lifetime of research in legal sources all over the West-from California to Montana to New Mexico-serves as a basic account of the legal treatment of Chinese immigrants in the West. The first two essays deal with anti-Chinese racial violence and judicial discrimination. The remainder of the book examines legal precedents and judicial doctrines derived from Chinese cases in specific western states. The Chinese, Wunder shows, used the American legal system to protect their rights and test a variety of legal doctrines, making vital contributions to the legal history of the American West.

"The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854" turns upside down the traditional way of thinking about one of the most important laws ever passed in American history. The act that created Nebraska and Kansas also, in effect, abolished the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in the region since 1820. This bow to local control outraged the nation and led to vicious confrontations, including Kansas's subsequent mini-civil war. The essays in this volume shift the focus from the violent and influential reaction of "Bleeding Kansas" to the role that Nebraska played in this decisive moment. Essays from both established and new scholars examine the historical context and significance of this statute. They treat American political culture of the 1850s; American territorial history; the roles of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and Frederick Douglass in the creation and implementation of the law; the reactions of African Americans to the act; and the comparative impact on Nebraskans and Kansans. At the 150th anniversary of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, as it came to be known, these scholars reexamine the political, social, and personal contexts of this act and its effect on the course of American history.

There's no denying [Hartman's] abilities as a photographer. Shape, color, and light, he has an impeccable eye for composition, for juxtaposing line against line, drawing the viewer's eye into his subject...In North Dakota, he likes a flood-drenched plain in orange twilight, one stretch of barbed wire fence in a strong horizontal, another triangulating stretch (just the fence posts visible above the water) disappearing into the distance. In South Dakota, he gives us a flat plain with alternating gold, green, and brown strips of field, a dark storm building overhead...Accompanying the first third of Hartman's photos is a new essay by William Kittredge (always an occasion)...There is no one more authoritatively positioned to comment on the West than Kittredge, nor anyone who can write about it half as well' - NewWest.net. 'Tells the story of the region in textures of flaking paint and rust juxtaposed against stunning sunsets and big skies. Intense color photographs narrate the 1500-mile, often-inhospitable route from Texas to Canada' - Texas Parks & Wildlife. 'A lavish and glorious new coffee-table book ...Hartman has a gifted eye for both the natural and man-made vistas that he encounters, and his color images are breathtaking. Beginning in North Dakota and working south, Hartman presents pictures that are themselves eloquent essays in rural and small-town spaces. An aura of loneliness and abandonment clings to many of these shots. It's no secret that people have been fleeing the harsh physical and economic realities of the Great Plains for years, and these pictures document that fact. Unpainted farm houses and rickety windmills hold silent vigil amid awesome expanses of earth and sky, weeds grow through a Nebraska sidewalk, and an old truck rusts into the Oklahoma soil...A testament to the alluring visual appeal of this country's great middle' - Mobile Register. Resulting from an arduous series of six journeys along the two-thousand-mile line that divides East from West, Monte Hartmans perceptive photographs provide the intimate yet dispassionate observations of a person who chose to explore the meanings inherent in the great empty middle between our coasts. These images inspired William Kittredge to travel the Meridian himself. His essay, an unblinking yet sensitive musing on what once was and what now remains, offers a poignant counterpoint to Hartmans visual tapestry. 'This slice of North America requires stamina unimaginable to the rest of us, and is populated by enduring people who've lost all patience with strangers when their efforts to convey their attachment to this place have fallen on deaf ears. It is not easy to know why a land so lonesome, so often melancholy, parts of which have never surpassed frontier density, will go on having such meaning to those who choose to stay. Hartman and Kittredge, discerning souls, have caught their attachment' - Thomas McGuane, author of The Cadence of Grass. '""Americas100th Meridian"" exposes our nations heartland in its beauty and desolation land as open and mysterious as the palm of Gods hand' - Annick Smith, co-producer of ""A River Runs Through It"". 'A breathtaking reminder of the beauty concentrated in that narrow slice of the continent' - ""North Dakota Quarterly"". 'An astounding coffee-table book tour ...A truly splendid and pristine memory, capturing timeless moments and locations' - ""Wisconsin Bookwatch"". 'A testament to the alluring visual appeal of this country's great middle' - ""Mobile Press-Register"". Monte Hartman has an M.A. in art from UCLA and forty years of experience in photography, design, and the arts. He lives with his wife in Hayward, California. William Kittredge, one of America's great Western writers, has authored many books, including ""Hole in the Sky"" and ""Who Owns the West?"".

As a group, American frontier historians have been uniquely influential within and beyond their profession. Frederick Jackson Turner in particular stands out, but many others in the field contributed theories, hypotheses, and pivotal works that have permanently altered American conceptions of history. This new reference is the first volume to provide comprehensive information on the most prominent historians of the frontier. Fully annotated, it presents individual analyses of more than 50 historical scholars who helped to shape research, writing, and critical thought on the American frontier and American history in general. Each chapter is prepared by a different specialist and includes a brief biography, a complete summary of articles and books, and a detailed analysis of the historian's work. Historians of the colonial, trans-Appalachian, and trans-Mississippi frontiers are represented together with scholars who were primarily concerned with agricultural history, the Spanish Borderlands, land policy, railroad history, Native American studies, or other specialized subject areas. A valuable resource for students and scholars working in American frontier history and related fields, this book is an appropriate selection for historical societies and academic and public libraries.