Culture

Who is a Native American? And who gets to decide? From genealogists searching online for their ancestors to fortune hunters hoping for a slice of casino profits from wealthy tribes, the answers to these seemingly straightforward questions have profound...

In the beginning, North America was Indian country. But only in the beginning. After the opening act of the great national drama, Native Americans yielded to the westward rush of European settlers. Or so the story usually goes. Yet, for three centuries...

Told in lively and powerful verse by debut author Kevin Noble Maillard, Fry Bread is an evocative depiction of a modern Native American family, vibrantly illustrated by Pura Belpre Award winner and Caldecott Honoree Juana Martinez-Neal.Fry...

This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty‑first century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakota roots as marginal hunter‑gatherers and...

There is powerful evidence that the colonization of Indigenous people was and is a crime, and that that crime is on-going. Achieving historical colonial goals often meant committing acts that were criminal even at the time. The consequences of this...

Blackfeet author Stephen Graham Jones brings readers a spine-tingling Native American horror novella. Walking through his own house at night, a fifteen-year-old thinks he sees another person stepping through a doorway. Instead of the people who could be...

Now adapted for young readers ages 12 through 18, the national bestseller that makes real American history come alive in all of its conflict, drama, and complexity Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the most important—and...

Dispatches of radical political engagement from people taking a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline It is prophecy. A Black Snake will spread itself across the land, bringing destruction while uniting Indigenous nations. The Dakota Access Pipeline...

Russell Means was the most controversial American Indian leader of our time. Where White Men Fear to Tread is the well-detailed, first-hand story of his life, in which he did everything possible to dramatize and justify the American Indian aim...

 As a prominent leader of the Sicangu Lakotas during a time of conflict and change, Spotted Tail (1823–1881) left his mark on the Northern Great Plains. He was not a hereditary chief but developed his standing over time, first proving himself...

“Land of Nakoda” is a vivid account of the history, legends, customs, crafts, and ceremonies of the Assiniboine Indians of the northern plains. First published in 1942, it was written and illustrated by tribal members who interviewed the Old...

Throughout his life, John Johnston was known by several names, including “Crow Killer” and “Liver-Eating Johnson” (without the “t”), names he earned through his penchant for killing Crow Indians before cutting out and...

In 1933 the United States Office of Indian Affairs began a major reform of Indian policy, organizing tribal governments under the provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act and turning over the administration of reservations to these new bodies...

Begun as a pork-barrel project by the federal government in the early 1900s, the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians quickly became a dumping ground for inconvenient Indians. The federal institution in Canton, South Dakota, deprived many Native...

The largest known collection of ledger art ever acquired by one individual is Mark Lansburgh’s diverse assemblage of more than 140 drawings, now held by the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College and catalogued in this important book. The...

When Blue Bird and her grandmother leave their family’s camp to gather beans for the long, threatening winter, they inadvertently avoid the horrible fate that befalls the rest of the family. Luckily, the two women are adopted by a nearby Dakota...

For Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota people, historical trauma, chronically underfunded federal programs, and broken promises on the part of the US government have resulted in gaping health, educational, and economic disparities compared to the general...

Now featured on the 2019 New York Times Bestseller list! The received idea of Native American history--as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee--has been that American Indian history essentially...

On August 19, 1854, U.S. Army lieutenant John L. Grattan led a detachment of twenty-nine soldiers and one civilian interpreter to a large Lakota encampment near Fort Laramie to arrest an Indian man accused of killing a Mormon emigrant’s cow. The...

Black Elk (1863-1950), the Lakota holy man, is beloved by millions of readers around the world. The book Black Elk Speaks is the most widely-read Native American testimony of the last century and a key work in our understanding of American...

Over the course of his career, artist Paul Dyck (1917–2006) assembled more than 2,000 nineteenth-century artworks created by the buffalo-hunting peoples of the Great Plains. Only with its acquisition by the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill...

Howard Terpning is one of the most lauded painters of Western art and considered by many to be a national treasure. He is known as the "storyteller of the Native American" because of his devotion to and respect for his subject matter, almost exclusively...

More than one hundred color reproductions--accompanied by an illuminating text by Elmer Kelton--capture the rich history and culture of native Americans in artwork inspired by the traditions of the Crow, Sioux, Apache, Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and other...

Although some aspects of Sioux history such as the Battle of the Little Big Horn and the Massacre at Wounded Knee are included in American history texts, along with mention of famous Sioux leaders such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, little attention is...