Volume 14 Spring 2003 Issue No. 3

Resource Guide:   The American Indian Perspective in American History

by Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox, Ph.D. (Comanche); Sheilah E. Nicholas (Hopi); and Claudia E. Nelson

The complete history of this country includes the American Indians, yet they have largely been neglected and/or misrepresented to students. Providing an American Indian perspective is essential. Instructors of American history should supplement textbooks with sources that present the more complete picture.

The resources listed below provide only a sample of the information about the "other side" of the story. Many are compilations of primary sources - historical documents that include memoirs and eyewitness accounts edited by non-Native scholars, some of which may be most appropriate for graduate students. Biographies and autobiographies are listed in a separate category; they offer rare and personal insights of tribal people at various periods in America's history. Dates in many cases indicate reprints and not original publication. Finally, websites and newspapers are cited as tools for the instructor.

As Chief Standing Bear states, "It is my [our] desire that all people know the truth about the first Americans and their relations with the United States government." (Luther Standing Bear, My people, the Sioux)

(Editor's note: we invite readers to submit their own suggestions for resources that provide an American Indian perspective on historic events in the United States. Send your suggestions to editor@tribalcollegejournal.org, and we may add them to the resource guide for this issue on our website www.tribalcollegejournal.org.)

BOOKS

Berkhofer, Robert, Jr. (1978). The white man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Presents the development of the "white man's Indian," evolving from white America's fluctuating interest and fascination in Indians as unique "others" across historic periods of time. By understanding the white image of the Indian, readers can better understand white societies and the intellectual premises within the contexts of particular history and space.

Calloway, Colin G. (1994). The world turned upside down: Indian voices from early America. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press.
One of a series of books utilizing primary sources, such as historical documents, letters, memoirs, interviews, pictures, movies, novels, and poems. Readers have an opportunity to study the past as historians and other researchers do.

Debo, Angie. (1973). And still the waters run: The betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Debo presents the tragic story of the liquidation of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole republics in Indian Territory when Oklahoma became a state in 1907.

Debo, Angie. (1970). A history of the Indians of the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
One of the first historical surveys of the Indians of the United States, including the Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska. Debo emphasizes the diversity among American Indian and Alaska Natives and their cultural ways, languages, and experiences.

DeJong, David H. (1993). Promises of the past: A history of Indian education in the United States. Golden, CO: North American Press.
The history of Indian education is documented through government papers, court decisions, letters, and eyewitness accounts tracing the non-Indians' efforts to educate and assimilate American Indians into dominant society.

Deloria, Vine, Jr. (1988, Reprint with new preface). Custer died for your sins: An Indian manifesto. New York: Macmillan.
Published at the height of America's movement for social change, Deloria (Standing Rock Sioux) tells non-Indian America that Indians do not want to be mainstreamed into American culture, giving the American history student an essential background for further study in this area. Primary areas of discussion include history, government policy and laws, corporate structure, the family unit, and education.

Fixico, Donald L. (ed.) (1997). Rethinking American Indian history. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Editor Donald L. Fixico (Shawnee, Sauk & Fox, Creek, and Seminole) is best known for his expertise in federal Indian policy and national issues affecting Indian people. In this edition, seven authors discuss from an Indian point of view the theories and methodologies of how the field of American history developed.

Francis, Lee. (1996). Native time: A historical time line of Native America. New York: St. Martins Press.
Provides a chronologically organized perspective of Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere and their respective sovereign nations and tribes, specifically from the contexts of history, literature, art, heroes, legends, wisdom, and philosophy.

Grinde, Donald A. (1977). The Iroquois and the founding fathers of the American nation. San Francisco: Indian Historian Press.
Historical work detailing the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy and its importance in shaping the initial development of American democracy.

Hoxie, Frederick E., Peter C. Mancall, and James H. Merrell (eds.) (2001). American nations: Encounters in Indian Country, 1850 to the present. New York: Routledge.
A collection of essays about American Indians who negotiate, accommodate, debate, and resist succumbing to the political powers of the United States government as well as their resourcefulness and strength against seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Johansen, Bruce E. and Donald A Grinde. (1995). Ecocide of Native America: Environmental destruction of Indian lands and peoples. Santa Fe, NM: Clearlight Publishers.
Presents the debate that has surrounded two concepts concerning the earth and Native American people: reciprocity and domination. The authors trace the evolution of a Native American environmental ethic and the ecological consequences for contemporary Native Americans.

Josephy, Alvin, Jr. (ed.) (1991.) America in 1492: The world of the Indian peoples before the arrival of Columbus. New York: Vintage Books.
Provides a portrait of the Indian world on the eve of Columbus' first voyage -- the fruits of their tenacity, marvelous innovations, inventions, and adaptations of their societies to different environments creating diverse and distinctive cultures.

Josephy, Alvin, Jr. (1991). The Indian heritage of America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Presents the history, archaeology, and ethnology, including the origins of languages, of all the major Indian cultures from Alaska to Patagonia. Particular emphasis is placed on their unique social patterns in an endeavor to present a true portrait of the Indians as they were and are.

Josephy, Alvin, Jr. (1971). Red power: The American Indians' fight for freedom. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
A chronology of the more militant aspects of the American Indian struggle for self-determination and self-government.

Martin, Calvin (ed.) (1987). The American Indian and the problem of history. New York: Oxford University Press.
The 18 authors include, among others, Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), Michael Norris (Modoc), Haunani-Kay Trask (Native Hawaiian), Gerald Vizenor (Chippewa), and Henrietta Whiteman (Cheyenne). They probe deeply into the concept of whether formal Western historical discourse has the philosophical power and imagination to study societies with a very different cosmos.

Nabokov, Peter (ed.) (1999). Native American testimony: A chronicle of Indian-white relations from prophecy to the present, 1492-1992. New York: Penguin.
A history of Native American and white relations presented through powerful and moving narrative documents revealing an Indian point of view.

Nies, Judith. (1996). Native American history: A chronology of a culture's vast achievements and their links to world events. New York: Ballentine Books.
In this vast chronology spanning from 20,000 B.C. through the 1900s, Nies "challenges the narrative of time and conventional myths of the Americas." Her book was inspired by the "paradigm shift resulting from the quincentenary of Columbus's arrival in 1492."

Rosenstiel, Annette. (1983). Red & white: Indian views of the white man 1492-1982. New York: Universe Books.
Presents the history of the Americas and Indian-white relations in the voices of Indians as revealed in documents, letters, books, and speeches archived in libraries on three continents.

Stannard, David E. (1992). American holocaust: The conquest of the new world. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stannard's prologue compares the arrival of Columbus to the first atomic bomb blast in 1945. This work details the horrific mass destruction of entire societies in the wake of European contact and allows the reader to gain understanding of the losses.

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES/BIOGRAPHIES

Eastman, Charles A. (1991). Indian heroes and great chieftains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa, Lakota Sioux) provides biographical vignettes of 15 Indian leaders.

Eastman, Charles A. (1977). From the deep wood to civilization. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Eastman (Ohiyesa) recounts a life filled with dramatic changes for the Santee division of the Sioux, which included consignment to a reservation, the Sioux uprising, his initiation into the non-Indian world and his subsequent role as mediator between two often-conflicting cultures.

Eastman, Charles A. (1971). Indian boyhood. New York: Dover.
Indian Boyhood is Eastman's recollection of his life with the Sioux during the 1870s and 1880s. This poignant autobiography provides his observations of Indian character, social custom, and morality. He also describes the traditional Lakota methods for governing themselves.

Iverson, Peter (2001). Carlos Montezuma and the changing world of American Indians. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
The life and career of the great American Indian crusader, Carlos Montezuma or Wassaja, is chronicled. He was a southern Arizona Yavapai and became a medical doctor and advocate for American Indian justice and education.

LaFlesche, Francis. (1963). The middle five, Indian schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
An account of Francis LaFlesche's (Omaha) life as a student in a Presbyterian mission school in northeastern Nebraska at about the time of the Civil War.

Mankiller, Wilma and Michael Wallis (1993). Mankiller: A chief and her people. New York: St. Martin's Press.
The personal story of Wilma Mankiller (Cherokee), former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, is told in the context of Cherokee history. Born in 1945, she details the American Indian civil rights struggle and its impact upon her life as she tries to balance her role as a woman in two cultures and as the leader of the Cherokee Nation.

Nabokov, Peter. (1967). Two Leggings: The making of a Crow warrior. New York: Thomas & Crowell Company.
Nabokov presents an elderly Crow warrior's vivid memories of significant historical events, thus giving insights into the life of the Crow Indian.

Qöyawayma, Polingaysi. (1964). No turning back, A Hopi Indian woman's struggle to live in two worlds. Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press.
The life story of Polingaysi Qöyawayma (1892-1990), also known as Elizabeth White, and the challenges she faced as an educated Hopi woman.

Standing Bear, Luther. (1978). Land of the spotted eagle. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Luther Standing Bear (Lakota) acquaints the Euro-American people with the "outward and something of the inner life" of the Lakota Sioux.

Standing Bear, Luther. (1975) My people the Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Through his autobiography, Standing Bear portrays the dramatic and traumatic changes to the traditional way of life for the Sioux.

Stockel, H. Henrietta. (ed.) and Harris, LaDonna. (2000). LaDonna Harris: A Comanche life. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Chronicles the life of LaDonna Harris (Comanche, born in 1931), one of the foremost contemporary American Indian women activists.

Udall, Louise. (1993). Me and mine: The life history of Helen Sekaquaptewa. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Helen Sekaquaptewa's (Hopi, 1898-1993) personal perspective on the meeting of two cultures and its impact upon her life during the early to mid-1900s.

Waldman, Carl (2001). Biographical dictionary of American Indian history to 1900, Revised Edition. New York: Checkmark Books.
A summary of the lives of 1,000 Indians and non-Indians central to American Indian history.

WEBSITES

History Link 101 Native American Indians
A comprehensive website, with excellent resources under biographies, maps, general Native American history, and research on historical moments including the Little Big Horn, Trail of Tears, and Wounded Knee. Also has links to tribal-specific histories. To contact via email comments@historylink101.com, website address www.historylink101.com/1/native_american/native_american_indian.htm

Native American Authors
This website provides information on Native North American authors with bibliographies of their published works, manuscripts, biographical information, and links to online resources including interviews, online texts, and tribal websites. The website primarily contains information on contemporary Native American authors, although some historical authors are represented. To contact via email ipl@ipl.org, website www.ipl.org/div/natam/

Native Americans in the Movies: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library
An exhaustive bibliographic and videographic resource guide pertaining to American Indian perspectives in film published by the University of California at Berkeley. Contains links to books and journal articles. To contact via email: Gary Handman, Head, Media Resources Center, University of California at Berkeley Library ghandman@library.berkeley.edu, website www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/IndigenousBib.html

This Day In North American Indian History
This site archives thousands of historical events that happened to or affected the indigenous peoples of North America. The "dates" section lists historical events by specific days when possible. To contact: Phil Konstantin, P.O. Box 17515 San Diego, CA 92177-1515. www.americanindian.net/

WWW Virtual Library - American Indians: An Index of Native American Electronic Text Resources on the Internet
An excellent online document site with indexes to full online texts including scholarly articles by historical and contemporary American Indian writers. Also has document archives with speeches, interviews, digital photography, and film. www.hanksville.org/NAresources/indices/NAetext.html

University of Arizona American Indian Studies Programs
The University of Arizona's American Indian Studies Programs celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2002. Over time, it has developed an extensive reading list for students and the general reading public alike. To contact via email cen@email.arizona.edu, website w3.arizona.edu/~aisp/reading_list.html

NEWSPAPERS

Across the nation there are approximately 280 reservation newspapers and bulletins, 320 urban Indian publications, about 100 magazines, 30 radio stations, and at least one television station. For comprehensive, nation-wide coverage, Indian Country Today is the premier source for current events across Indian Country. National columnists include Suzan Shown Harjo, Rebecca Adamson, John C. Mohawk, Ph.D., Kevin Gover, and Carey N. Vicenti. See their website: www.indiancountry.com/

For links to other Native publications, see Lisa Mitten's website www.nativeculture.com/lisamitten/indians.html

Dr. Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox (Comanche) is the director/ chair of American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson. She has worked extensively with public classroom teachers of American Indian students. Sheilah Nicholas (Hopi) is a doctoral candidate in American Indian Studies at the university with an emphasis is Native languages and American Indian education. Claudia Nelson is a masters' student in American Indian Studies at the university and program coordinator for community outreach in American Indian Studies Programs.