From Time Immemorial

Featuring contributions from a number of renowned scholars, this superb reference source edited by Gibbon ( Anthropological Archaeology) has no equal in its coverage of Native American cultures in North America prior to European contact.

This handbook by an anthropology professor at the College of William and Mary includes not only a broad overview of the history of Native Americans in the Northeast but also a partially annotated listing of materials for further research including published primary sources, oral traditions, films, and Internet sites.

This collection of 25 authoritative historiographical essays examines the current state of scholarship on the history of Native American peoples. In addition to providing an overview, it charts new directions for future research.

A must for all libraries, this anthology reprints treaties, agreements, and conventions negotiated between the United States and the various nations and tribes. It also includes treaties negotiated by the Republic of Texas and the Confederate States of America.

Featuring the most current research available from some of the foremost experts in their respective fields, this authoritative and comprehensive work documents approximately 10,000 years of Native American habitation in a geographically defined region that extends from the Upper Mississippi River Valley to the Rocky Mountains and from the Saskatchewan River valley in present-day Canada to the Rio Grande. ( LJ 2/1/02)

Schobinger, Professor Emeritus at the University of Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina, has produced a superb reference that surveys the entire Western Hemisphere prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. This copiously illustrated work is especially notable for its numerous full-color plates of Native American rock art.

With more than 150 photographs and illustrations, many of them in color, this work surveys the types of weapons used by native groups throughout North America. Taylor ( Buckskin and Buffalo) includes not only combat weapons but also those used for ceremonial purposes. ( LJ 8/01)

The Appalachian Mountains, ranging from New England to northern Alabama, have been home to native populations for at least 12,000 years. The essays here examine the many ways that the cultures of the native people living in the Appalachian region were shaped by their mountainous environment.

Until recently, most anthropologists and historians believed that it was people from Asia who populated the Americas by crossing the Bering Land Bridge, which existed approximately 14,000 years ago. This dominant theory was undermined by the work of Dillehay, who excavated a site in Chile known as Monte Verde that contained artifacts at least 20,000 years old. In this seminal work, he presents a multidisciplinary theory of the settlement of the Americas that provides context to his groundbreaking work in Chile. ( LJ 5/15/00)

Located in Louisiana, Poverty Point is a 3500-year-old archaeological site consisting of six concentric ridges and mounds. Some of the artifacts found there were made from materials originating from places such as the Great Lakes region and the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Gibson (Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette) demonstrates that extensive trade networks in exotic goods existed centuries earlier than previously believed.

Though this work includes scholarly minutia, its examination of the evolution of Native American cultures in the Southwest is first-rate and unsurpassed. Summarizing the results of one of North America's largest archaeological projects, it will be of particular value to those interested in the Navajo or Pueblo.

Written for a nonacademic audience, this fascinating work uses archaeological and historical evidence to document the rise and fall of the paramount chiefdom of Coosa. At its peak in the 16th century, it encompassed contiguous portions of present-day northwestern Georgia, east Tennessee, and central Alabama. Following the rapid decline of the chiefdom, the people of Coosa became part of the emerging Creek Confederacy.

This outstanding study of the root causes of distrust between archaeologists and Native American groups carefully examines both sides of the issues. Thomas, curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, demonstrates that it is possible to respect the concerns of Native Americans and conduct good research concurrently. ( LJ 4/1/00)

This anthology conveniently consolidates 25 influential essays that have been previously published in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Ethnohistory, William & Mary Quarterly, and American Indian Culture and Research Journal. While not interrelated, these articles provide insight into various contact points throughout North America. ( LJ 11/15/99)

Hoxie, Peter Mancall, and James Merrell have jointly edited this collection of 23 articles that illuminate the experiences of different tribes as they have maintained their unique ethnic identities while dealing with the U.S. government. ( LJ 8/01)

This elegantly written and well-documented work's emphasis on Indian communities, rather than the exploits of native warriors on the battlefield, illuminates a theater of conflict that has largely been ignored in monographs about the American Revolution. Calloway (Dartmouth Coll.) demonstrates that regardless of whether the Indians fought with or against the victorious Americans, they suffered the same fate--they all were denied a place in the new nation.

Conley, a Cherokee, has produced a sensitively written history of the Cherokee Nation that features approximately 130 beautiful color photographs by David G. Fitzgerald, some of which are included in the touring exhibition Cherokee Nation--Portrait of a People.

Dowd (history and American culture; dir., Native American Studies, Univ. of Michigan) examines how religious and military leaders from different tribes, e.g., Pontiac and Tecumseh, were able to define an ideology of pan-Indian unity that found adherents in communities ranging from the Great Lakes region to Florida. Though from different tribes, these 'nativists' somehow came to view themselves as one people and together fought American expansion westward.

Fenton, long considered the dean of Iroquois scholarship, presents an authoritative political history of the Iroquois people that represents the capstone of his distinguished career. If a library has only one book about the Iroquois, a confederacy that had a profound impact on the development of Colonial America, it should be this title.

The African slave trade in the American South has long attracted the attention of scholars while the Indian slave trade has been ignored. Gallay (history, Western Washington Univ.) vividly examines how Europeans and Native Americans together developed a trade in Native American slaves that proved critical in the development of plantation slavery.

While Andrew Jackson has justifiably borne the brunt of the blame for the relocation of the Cherokee, Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, and Chickasaws from the Southeast to Oklahoma via the Trails of Tears, this work illuminates the key role in the process played by the judiciaries of individual states that justified the removal of sovereign peoples from their homelands through the use of states' rights as a legal excuse.

Harmon (American Indian Studies Ctr., Univ. of Washington) examines how both the federal government and the native peoples of western Washington were constantly redefining Indian identity to their advantage over a 150-year period. Harmon's examination of the native fishing rights controversy of the 1960s and 1970s is particularly useful.

Using four chronologically distinct basketry traditions, based on white oak, rivercane, honeysuckle, and red maple, independent scholar Hill carefully explores how Cherokee women constructed baskets from the 1700s to the present day. In the process, she provides valuable insights regarding the history of the Eastern Cherokee. ( LJ 6/1/97)

Though designed to be a textbook, this title is an excellent overview of 20th-century Native American history as viewed through native eyes. Begining with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, Iverson shows, in community-by-community profiles, all that has come in the century afterward. The book is especially insightful on the difficulties of generalizing about American Indian history, whether the subject is Jim Thorpe or the political efforts of AIM leaders in the 1970s, owing to the diversity of native cultures found within North America.

Joseph Brant, a Mohawk also known as Thayendanegea, was a Christian who was educated at Rev. Eleazar Wheelock's school in Lebanon, CT. Comfortable in white society, he was also a prominent Iroquois chief who rose to renown during the American Revolution.

Though scholars in recent decades have attempted to balance Native American historiography by providing the 'Indian' perspective, Nabokov (Univ. of California-Los Angeles) demonstrates that a single, monolithic viewpoint does not exist. Instead his path-breaking multidisciplinary intellectual history demonstrates the many ways that individual tribes and nations have defined their histories for their own purposes. ( LJ 3/15/02)

Nagel, editor of Red Power: The American Indians' Fight for Freedom, persuasively argues that American Indian political activism, especially the Red Power movement of the 1970s, was directly responsible for both a cultural renaissance among Indian peoples and major changes in federal Indian policy.

Beginning with the American Revolution and continuing to 1980, Prucha (Professor Emeritus, Marquette Univ.) brilliantly chronicles the history of relations between the federal government and Native Americans, in a work that belongs in all public and academic libraries.

Remini is widely considered one of the foremost experts on Jacksonian America and author of a three-volume biography of Andrew Jackson thought to be the most authoritative now available. In this work, Remini grudgingly admits that Andrew Jackson committed some heinous acts toward certain Indians. He then launches into a spirited defense of Jackson's reputation by going to great lengths to show why those actions were justified. ( LJ 5/15/01)

Richter (dir., McNeil Ctr. for Early American Studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania) has written a masterly work that eschews the longstanding perception that Native Americans were nothing more than marginalized bystanders as Europeans colonized the continent. Focusing on the period between the 15th and 18th centuries, he demonstrates that indigenous peoples actively participated along with the newly arrived Europeans in creating a new way of life on the continent. ( LJ 10/15/01)

With the expressed purpose of separating historical truths from fictionalized deeds, this compilation, edited by historian Perdue (Univ. of North Carolina), contains 14 biographical essays focusing on important female Native Americans such as Pocahontas, Molly Brant, and Alice Lee Jemison.

Sleeper-Smith (history, Michigan State) illuminates the key role of Native American women who were married to French fur traders as cultural mediators between Native and French societies during the Colonial period.

West's beautifully written award-winning monograph synthesizes the history of native peoples on the Plains with an emphasis on the nomadic lifestyle that developed with the arrival of horses. It was a way of life adversely affected by both military campaigns launched by the United States and the arrival of large numbers of gold-seekers bent on exploiting natural resources during the Colorado Gold Rush. (LJ 3/15/98)

As demonstrated by historian White ( Remembering Ahanagran), the 'middle ground' was both a geographic area and an amorphous concept where conflicting European and Indian cultures were forced to coexist through constant adaptation and compromise. This highly significant work has greatly influenced subsequent research involving interactions between whites and Native Americans.

This monograph is an examination of race relations in the Oklahoma Territory during the period between the conclusion of the Civil War and the granting of Oklahoma statehood. Though its subject matter is extremely complex, since it involves relations among three competing ethnic groups, the information is presented in a manner that is accessible to educated readers.

Narrated by James Earl Jones and featuring contributions from noted historians such as Theda Perdue, this documentary vividly illuminates the tragic history of individuals of both African and Native American descent. Though its ranks include notables such as Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, it is an ethnic group largely absent from the historical literature. (LJ 2/15/01)

This catalog lists over 620 films--documentary feature, documentary short, feature film, live short subject, public service, industrial, docudrama, animated, and music video--that appeared in the American Indian Film Festival over the last 25 years. For each film, there is a synopsis, filmmaker information, and distribution contact. A companion CD-ROM includes 30 film clips, a speech by Chief Dan George, and more.

This digital collection focuses on the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest and includes approximately 7700 pages of text supplemented by 2300 photographs. These resources are drawn from the collections of the University of Washington Libraries, the Cheney Cowles Museum, Eastern Washington State Historical Society in Spokane, and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.

Produced by the National Park Service, this site is designed to provide information about the Mississippi societies that flourished throughout the Southeastern portion of North America from approximately 800 C.E. to the time of European contact.

In addition to treaties, this collection of digitized primary documents also includes presidential addresses, statutes, and court cases.