Indigenous Politics

Below the mist-shrouded mountains of the West Coast lie the stories of how we came to be. It is through the myths of the people who have lived with this spirit of place for thousands of years that we uncover the mystery of our homeland. The mythical creatures Raven, Thunderbird, Bear, and the Great Spirit become a path to rediscovering the spiritual landscape of culture. These are the stories of the Pacific Coast that tell of gods and demons, good and evil; things unimaginable brought to life.

We all need help centering ourselves to serve ourselves and our world. In this small, beautiful book, the Kogi—a remote and ancient tribe in the mountains of Colombia—offer their learnings. They pose nine provocative questions to help people around the planet to spiritual peace.

In this fascinating work, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota and Red Lake Ojibwe Nation member Brenda J. Child spotlights the remarkable women of the Ojibwe Nation. A stunning look at a seldom explored subject in history, Holding Our World Together shows how American Indian women have profoundly influenced Native American life - from the days of the European fur trade to the present - in activism, community, and beyond.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noe Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother. A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in. At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories and his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala.

Cochise, a Chiricahua, was said to be the most resourceful, most brutal, most feared Apache. He and his warriors raided in both Mexico and the United States, crossing the border both ways to obtain sanctuary after raids for cattle, horses, and other livestock. Once, only he was captured and imprisoned; on the day he was freed he vowed never to be taken again. From that day, he gave no quarter and asked none.

In March 1621, when Plymouth’s survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth’s governor, John Carver, declared their people’s friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the 'First Thanksgiving'. The treaty remained operative until King Philip’s War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end.

A hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, on a spit of land just seven miles long and 650 yards across at its widest point, some 400 members of the Inupiat tribe go about their lives. This is Kivalina, Alaska, where, like all of us, villagers fall in love, bicker with family, worry about money, and raise children. But unique to Kivalinan existence are extraordinary hardships that render life there nearly unrecognizable to most. Through superlative immersive reporting, Jenni Monet introduces us to the people who are making their way amid these extraordinary circumstances.

The Conquest of Texas is the story of the struggle between Anglos and Indians for land. Anderson tells how Scotch-Irish settlers clashed with farming tribes and then challenged the Comanches and Kiowas for their hunting grounds. Next, the decade-long conflict with Mexico merged with war against Indians. For fifty years Texas remained in a virtual state of war. Piercing the very heart of Lone Star mythology, Anderson tells how the Texas government encouraged the Texas Rangers to annihilate Indian villages, including women and children. This policy of terror succeeded.

At the height of the Great Depression, Sam Babb, the charismatic basketball coach of tiny Oklahoma Presbyterian College, began dreaming. Like so many others, he wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm, he recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education if they would come play for his basketball team, the Cardinals. Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices faced by their families, the women followed Babb and his dream.

This volume will revise the way we look at the modern populations of Latin America and North America by providing a totally new view of the history of Native-American and African-American peoples throughout the hemisphere. Africans and Native Americans explores key issues relating to the evolution of racial terminology and European colonialists' perceptions of color, analyzing the development of color classification systems and the specific evolution of key terms such as black, mulatto, and mestizo, which no longer carry their original meanings.

In this collection of deeply insightful and powerful essays, Chelsea Watego examines the ongoing and daily racism faced by First Nations peoples in so-called Australia. Rather than offer yet another account of ‘the Aboriginal problem’, she theorises a strategy for living in a society that has only ever imagined Indigenous peoples as destined to die out. Drawing on her own experiences and observations of the operations of the colony, she exposes the lies that settlers tell about Indigenous people.

Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment.

In the autumn of 1878, a band of Cheyenne Indians set out from Indian Territory, where they had been sent by the US government, to return to their homeland in Yellowstone country. Mari Sandoz tells the saga of their heartbreaking fifteen-hundred-mile flight.

Flight is the hilarious and tragic story of an orphaned Indian boy - "Zits" - who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful, swift prose, Flight follows the troubled teenager as he learns that violence is not the answer.

Settler capitalism has been so effective that the very identities of Indigenous people have been usurped, misconstrued, and weaponized. In Who Gets to Be Indian?, scholar and writer Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) explores how ethnic fraud and the commodification of Indianness has resulted in mass confusion about what it means to be Indigenous in the United States.

Dreams and Death in African Mythology: The History of Legends and Folk Stories About Dreams and Death Across Africa examines the various stories that sought to explain death and dreams, from their origins to their evolution across different cultures.

Alaska Natives is not merely a collection of facts and dates; it's a captivating narrative that explores the Alaska Native cultures and their journey into the modern era. Discover the pathways on the Bering Land Bridge, share in the contemporary celebrations that honor their heritage, and witness the continuity of traditions that are intertwined with tales of resilience, artistry, and their incredible connection with the land.

Searching through the annals of North American history uncovers the diverse and astounding contributions by the Natives of the Americas who formed the world we know today.

After a security guard is found dead and another wounded at the Children's Museum of Science and History in Norman, Oklahoma, Detective Monique Blue Hawk and her partner Chris Pierson are summoned to investigate. They find no fingerprints, no footprints, and no obvious means to enter the locked building.

Don’t Take Your Love to Town is a story of courage in the face of poverty and tragedy. Ruby recounts losing her mother when she was six, growing up in a mission in northern New South Wales and leaving home when she was 15. She lived in tin huts and tents in the bush and picked up work on the land while raising nine children virtually single-handedly. Later she struggled to make ends meet in the Koori areas of Sydney.