After One Hundred Winters by Margaret D. Jacobs
After One Hundred Winters confronts the harsh truth that the United States was founded on the violent dispossession of Indigenous people and asks what reconciliation might mean in light of this haunted history. In this timely and urgent book, settler historian Margaret Jacobs tells the stories of the individuals and communities who are working together to heal historical wounds—and reveals how much we have to gain by learning from our history instead of denying it.
American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian 1865-1900 by Francis Paul Prucha presents an account of United States Indian policy in the years 1865 to 1900. A very-well documented and clearly written treatment of the history of how we got to where we are in regard to religious group involvement in the U.S. Indian Policy. The Episcopal Church and its leaders are mentioned repeatedly for their efforts.
Blood and Thunder: At the center of this sweeping tale is Kit Carson, the trapper, scout, and soldier whose adventures made him a legend. Sides shows us how this illiterate mountain man understood and respected the Western tribes better than any other American, yet willingly followed orders that would ultimately devastate the Navajo nation. Rich in detail and spanning more than three decades, this is an essential addition to our understanding of how the West was really won.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer: Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
Chief Left Hand by Margaret Coel: This is the first biography of Chief Left Hand, diplomat, linguist, and legendary of the Plains Indians. Working from government reports, manuscripts, and the diaries and letters of those persons—both white and Indian—who knew him, Margaret Coel has developed an unusually readable, interesting, and closely documented account of his life and the life of his tribe during the fateful years of the mid-1800s.
In the Hands of the Great Spirit: The 20,000-Year History of American Indians by Jake Page: Today, some two million American Indians inhabit the United States, less than one percent of the nation's population. Their origins have always been viewed from a 500-year-old perspective—from the point of view of the Europeans who "discovered" the New World. Yet the true story of the American Indians begins some seventeen thousand years ago—and it is past due for a telling that shows Indians as they are, rather than as westerners wish them to be.
Massacre at Sand Creek: How Methodists Were Involved in an American Tragedy by Gary. L. Roberts: At dawn on the morning of November 29, 1864, Colonel John Milton Chivington gave the command that led to slaughter of 230 peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos—primarily women, children, and elderly—camped under the protection of the U. S. government along Sand Creek in Colorado Territory and flying both an American flag and a white flag.
Neither Wolf Nor Dog by Kent Nerburn: Kent Nerburn draws the reader deep into the world of an Indian elder known only as Dan. It's a world of Indian towns, white roadside cafes, and abandoned roads that swirl with the memories of the Ghost Dance and Sitting Bull. Readers meet vivid characters like Jumbo, a 400-pound mechanic, and Annie, an 80-year-old Lakota woman living in a log cabin. Threading through the book is the story of two men struggling to find a common voice. Neither Wolf nor Dog takes readers to the heart of the Native American experience. As the story unfolds, Dan speaks eloquently on the difference between land and property, the power of silence, and the selling of sacred ceremonies. This edition features a new introduction by the author. "This is a sobering, humbling, cleansing, loving book, one that every American should read." — Yoga Journal
Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision by Randy S. Woodley: In Shalom and the Community of Creation Randy Woodley offers an answer: learn more about the Native American 'Harmony Way,' a concept that closely parallels biblical shalom. Doing so can bring reconciliation between Euro-Westerners and Indigenous peoples, a new connectedness with the Creator and creation, an end to imperial warfare, the ability to live in the moment, justice, restoration — and a more biblically authentic spirituality. Rooted in redemptive correction, this book calls for true partnership through the co-creation of new theological systems that foster wholeness and peace.
The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and An American Inheritance by Rebecca Clarren: An award-winning author investigates the entangled history of her Jewish ancestors' land in South Dakota and the Lakota, who were forced off that land by the United States government
The Land Is Not Empty by Sarah Augustine: In this prophetic book, Augustine, a Pueblo woman, reframes the colonization of North America as she investigates ways that the Doctrine of Discovery continues to devastate indigenous cultures, and even the planet itself, as it justifies exploitation of both natural resources and people. This is a powerful call to reckon with the root causes of a legacy that continues to have devastating effects on indigenous peoples around the globe and a call to recognize how all of our lives and our choices are interwoven. Joe Hubbard will lead a study of it if there's interest.
The Urgency of Indigenous Values: In this book, Philip Arnold utilizes a collaborative method, derived from the "Two-Row Wampum" (1613) and his 40 year relationship with the Haudenosaunee, in exploring the urgent need to understand Indigenous values, support Indigenous Peoples, and to offer a way toward humanity's survival in the face of ecological and environmental catastrophe. Indigenous values connect human beings with the living natural world through ceremonial exchange practices with non-human beings who co-inhabit the homelands. Arnold outlines Indigenous traditions of habitation and ceremonial gift economies and contrasts those with settler-colonial values of commodification where the land and all aspects of material life belong to human beings and are reduced to monetary use-value.
