History & Stories

Religion and Culture in Native America presents an introduction to a diverse array of Indigenous religious and cultural practices in North America, focusing on those issues in which tribal communities themselves are currently invested.  These topics...

A Modern-Day Explorer's Guide to the Old West- From the famed Oregon Trail to the boardwalks of Dodge City to the Great trading posts on the Missouri River to the battlefields of the nineteenth-century Indian Wars, there are places all over the American...

"R. Grace Morgan's important study of the impact of beaver, bison, and horse on the lifeways of Indigenous people of the Northern Great Pains remains relevant in our times. Morgan deftly analyzes the long-term ecological history of this region, where...

For decades, American schoolchildren have learned only a smattering of facts about Native American peoples, especially when it comes to service in the U.S. military. They might know that Navajos served as Code Talkers during World War II, but more often...

Mari Sandoz’s beautifully written account of the battle in which General George Armstrong Custer staked his life—and lost it—reveals on every page the author’s intimate knowledge of her subject. The character of the Sioux, the...

The U.S. Army built Fort Phil Kearny in the foothills of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains in 1866 to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail headed to Montana’s gold fields. The need for this protection arose because the Bozeman Trail cut through...

In the same voice that has comforted and challenged countless readers through his daily social media posts, Choctaw elder and Episcopal priest Steven Charleston offers words of hard-won hope, rooted in daily conversations with the Spirit and steeped in...

A rich trove of stories from Pejuhutazizi K’api, the place where they dig the yellow medicine – now also known as the Upper Sioux Indian Community in Minnesota. From long ago: “The bear was too close at hand to think of running away...

Prince Maximilian of Wied's scientific expedition to the Upper Missouri (1832-1834) was a highlight in the encounter between Europe and the New World.  The illustrations that Karl Bodmer created for the Prince's travel journal rank as masterpieces...

In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, an American buffalo herd once numbering thirty million animals was reduced to twelve.  In the Robber Baron era, the buffalo was a commodity, hounded by legions of swashbucklers and unemployed...

Book One  in "The Indian Lake Triology" You won't find a more hardcore eighties slasher-film fan than high school senior Jade Daniels.  And you won't find a place less supportive of girls who wear torn T-shirts and too much eyeliner than...

Between 1864 and 1877, during the height of the Plains Indian wars, Pawnee Indian scouts rendered invaluable service to the United States Army. They led missions deep into contested territory, tracked resisting bands, spearheaded attacks against enemy...

During the mid-nineteenth century, a quarter of a million travelers—men, women, and children—followed the “road across the plains” to gold rush California. This magnificent chronicle—the second installment of Will...

From the author of Sacred Smokes! Chicago: home to urban Indians and immigrants and working folks and the whole gamut of people getting by in a world that doesn't care whether they do so or not. Sacred City is an incomparable follow-up to...

In September 1868, the undermanned United States Army was struggling to address attacks by Cheyenne and Sioux warriors against the Kansas settlements, the stagecoach routes, and the transcontinental railroad.  General Sheridan hired fifty...

"Treuer's arguments are passionate and motivating, especially for language warriors engaged in the everyday struggles of language and culture revitalization.  His personal quest in learning Ojibwe as a second language is inspiring, and he suggests...

“David Laskin deploys historical fact of the finest grain to tell the story of a monstrous blizzard that caught the settlers of the Great Plains utterly by surprise. . . . This is a book best read with a fire roaring in the hearth and a blanket and...

In the 1860s and 1870s, the United States government forced most western Native Americans to settle on reservations. These ever-shrinking pieces of land were meant to relocate, contain, and separate these Native peoples, isolating them from one another...

During the nineteenth century, the U.S. military fought numerous battles against American Indians. These so-called Indian wars devastated indigenous populations, and some of the conflicts stand out today as massacres, as they involved violent attacks on...

This book illustrates the role which buffalo robes played within Plains Indian societies of the 18th and 19th century.  It presents a one-of-a-kind documentation of the almost inexhaustible amount of different uses Native people made of tanned...

“Minnesota” is derived from the Dakota phrase Mni Sota Makoce, Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds—and the people’s roots here remain strong. Authors Gwen Westerman and Bruce White examine narratives of the people’s...

Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an...

Within six months of the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, seventy-five hundred American Indians enlisted in the military, and the numbers grey steadily.  By war's end, at least twenty-five thousand American Indian men and women had...

Nothing can change the terrible facts of the Sand Creek Massacre. The human toll of this horrific event and the ensuing loss of a way of life have never been fully recounted until now. In Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, Louis Kraft tells...