Read An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Online
Authors: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
1
.    Mann,
1491
, 323.
2
.    Rostlund,
Myth of a Natural Prairie Belt in Alabama
, 409.
3
.    Mann,
1491
, 252.
4
.    Denevan, “Pristine Myth,” 369â85.
5
.    Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom, and Armitage,
Out of Many
, 1â24. The title of
the textbook reflected its intent. The title of the first chapter is “A Continent of Villages, to 1500.”
6
.    Jennings,
Invasion of America,
15.
7
.    For a revealing comparative study, see Gump, “Civil Wars in South Dakota and South Africa,'” 427â44. In relying on the ancient origin story of the covenant, the modern state of Israel is also using exceptionalist ideology, refusing to acknowledge the settler-colonial nature of the state. Donald Harman Akenson,
God's Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster
(Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991), 151â82, 227â62, 311â48.
8
.    Akenson,
God's Peoples
, 9.
9
.    Jacobson,
The Story of Stories
, 10.
10
.  Akenson,
God's Peoples
, 30â31, 73â74.
11
.  Ibid., 112.
12
.  See Miller,
Errand in the Wilderness
; Jennings,
Invasion of America
; Vowell,
Wordy Shipmates
.
13
.  Phillips,
Cousins' Wars
, 177â90.
14
.  Akensen,
God's Peoples
, 118.
15
.  See Green,
People with No Name
.
16
.  The presidents include Andrew Jackson, 1829â37; James K. Polk, 1845â49; James Buchanan, 1856â61; Andrew Johnson, 1865â69; Ulysses S. Grant, 1869â77; Chester A. Arthur, 1881â85; Grover Cleveland, 1885â89 and 1893â97; Benjamin Harrison, 1889â93; William McKinley, 1897â1901; Theodore Roosevelt, 1901â9; Woodrow Wilson, 1913â21; Harry S. Truman, 1949â53; Richard M. Nixon, 1969â74; Jimmy Carter, 1977â81; George H. W. Bush, 1989â93; Bill Clinton, 1993â2001; George W. Bush, 2001â2009; and Barack Obama, 2009â.
17
.  For a Scots-Irish family history, see James Webb,
Born Fighting
. Webb proudly served in the US Marine Corps and became navy secretary in the Reagan administration and later a Democratic Party senator from Virginia. Webb assumes that the United States is a great and powerful country and owes that position largely to Scots-Irish settlers.
18
.  Degler,
Out of Our Past
, 51.
Epigraph: John Grenier,
The First Way of War
, 5, 10. Grenier is an air force officer and associate professor of history at the US Air Force Academy.
1
.    LaDuke,
Militarization of Indian Country
, xvâxvii.
2
.    O'Brien,
American Indian Tribal Governments
, 205â6. To be recognized as “Indian Country,” usually the land must either be within an Indian reservation or it must be federal trust land (land technically owned by the federal government but held in trust for a tribe or tribal member). For most purposes, the types of Indian country are as follows:
1. Reservations (18 USC 1151(a)). Historically, Indian reservations were created when particular tribes signed treaties with the United States. Among other things (treaties often included provisions for tribal members to receive law enforcement, education, health care benefits, and to retain hunting/fishing rights), the tribes typically transferred their traditional lands to the United States government but “reserved” part of their lands for tribal purposes. These “reserved” lands became known as “reservations.” Later, many “reservations” were created by presidential executive orders or by congressional enactments. As defined by 18 USC 1151(a), “Indian country” consists of all land within a reservation including land that is privately owned and land that is subject to a right-of-way (for example, a publicly accessible road). However, some reservations have been “disestablished” or nullified by such things as federal court decisions or later congressional enactments.
2. Informal Reservations. If a reservation has been disestablished or if the legal existence of a reservation is not clear, remaining trust lands that have been set aside for Indian use are still Indian country (Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Chickasaw Nation, 515 US 450 and Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Sac & Fox Nation, 508 US 114).
3. Dependent Indian communities (18 USC 1151(b)). In US v. Sandoval (231 US 28) the US Supreme Court ruled that pueblo tribal lands in New Mexico are “Indian country” and in US v. McGowan (302 US 535) the Court ruled that Indian colonies in Nevada are also “Indian country.” The results of these decisions were later codified at 18 USC 1151(b) as “dependent Indian communities.” The Court has interpreted “dependent Indian communities” to be land that is federally supervised and which has been set aside for the use of Indians, Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie (522 US 520).
4. Allotments (18 USC 1151(c)). Primarily from 1887 until 1934, the federal government ran programs where some parcels of tribal trust land were allotted or assigned to particular Indian persons or particular Indian families (but further transfers were to be temporarily restricted by the federal government). Some of these allotments were later converted to private ownership. However, when the allotment programs were frozen by congressional enactment in 1934, many parcels of land were still in restricted or trust status; these remaining parcels are “Indian country” even if they are no longer within a reservation.
5. Special Designations. Congress can specially designate that certain lands are Indian country for jurisdictional purposes even if those lands might not fall within one of the categories mentioned above. An example of this is Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico (Public Law 106â568, section 824(c)) (O'Brien). “What Is Indian Country?,” Indian Country Criminal Jurisdiction,
http://tribaljurisdiction.tripod.com/id7.html
(accessed September 25, 2013).
3
.    Grenier,
First Way of War
, 5, 10. See also Kaplan, “Prologue: Injun Country,” in
Imperial Grunts
, 3â16; and Cohen,
Conquered into Liberty
.
4
.    Grenier,
First Way of War
, 1.
5
.    Bailyn,
Barbarous Years
.
6
.    Grenier,
First Way of War
, 4â5, 7.
7
.    Ibid., 21.
8
.    From Samuel G. Drake,
Biography and History of the Indians of North America
(Boston, 1841), quoted in Nabokov,
Native American Testimony
, 72.
9
.    For the role of Pocahontas in the Powhatan resistance, see Townsend,
Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
.
10
.  The
Encarta World English Dictionary
defines the verb “to extirpate” as “to completely get rid of, kill off, or destroy something or somebody considered undesirable” or “to remove something surgically.”
11
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 22â26.
12
.  Ibid., 34.
13
.  For a brilliant examination of this issue, see Allen,
Invention of the White Race
.
14
.  Zinn,
People's History of the United States
, 39â42; Washburn,
Governor and the Rebel
.
15
.  Foner,
Give Me Liberty
!, 100.
16
.  Quoted in Vowell,
Wordy Shipmates
, 31.
17
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 26â27.
18
.  Ibid., 27.
19
.  Ibid., 27â28.
20
.  Quoted in Zinn,
People's History of the United States
, 15.
21
.  “King Philip” was what the English called Wampanoag leader Metacom.
22
.  Colonialist recruitment of Native guides, informants, and fighters had its counterpart in the twentieth century. For example, the federally funded Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs) functioned as an Indigenous paramilitary organization on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in the early 1970s, attacking and murdering anyone, including old and infirm people, who supported the American Indian Movement.
23
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 29â34, 36â37, 39.
24
.  Taylor,
American Colonies
, 290.
25
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 39â41.
26
.  Ibid., 42â43.
27
.  Ibid., 52.
28
.  Ibid., 55â57.
29
.  Ibid., 58, 60â61.
30
.  See Szabo,
The Seven Years War in Europe
; and Anderson,
War That Made America
.
31
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 66, 77.
32
.  Ibid., 115â17.
33
.  Amherst quoted in Calloway,
Scratch of a Pen
, 73.
34
.  Quoted in Grenier,
First Way of War
, 144.
35
.  Ibid., 41.
36
.  Ibid., 141â43.
37
.  From
The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
5 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina), quoted in Nabokov,
Native American Testimony
, 41â42.
38
.  Calloway,
Scratch of a Pen
, 168â69.
39
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 148.
40
.  For an in-depth study of Hollywood “cowboy and Indian” movies, see Slotkin,
Gunfighter Nation
.
41
.  Dunmore quoted in Grenier,
First Way of War
, 150.
42
.  Jennings, “The Indians' Revolution,” 337â38.
43
.  For the integral role of spiritual leaders in Indigenous resistance, see Dowd,
Spirited Resistance
.
44
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 153â54.
45
.  Richter,
Facing East from Indian Country
, 223.
46
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 161.
47
.  Richter,
Facing East from Indian Country
, 222â23.
48
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 152.
49
.  Calloway,
American Revolution in Indian Country
, 197â98.
50
.  Ibid., 197.
51
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 51â53.
52
.  Ibid., 17â18.
53
.  Ibid., 59â63.
54
.  Washington and Sullivan quoted in Drinnon,
Facing West
, 331.
55
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 163, 166â68.
Epigraph: King,
Why We Can't Wait
, 41â42. Orig. published Harper and Row, 1964.
1
.    Richter,
Facing East From Indian Country
, 223â24.
2
.    See Bogus, “Hidden History of the Second Amendment”; and Hadden,
Slave Patrols
.
3
.    Grenier,
First Way of War
, 170â72.
4
.    Anderson and Cayton,
Dominion of War
, 104â59.
5
.    Grenier,
First Way of War
, 193â95.
6
.    Ibid., 195â97.
7
.    Ibid., 198â200.
8
.    Calloway,
Shawnees and the War for America
, 102â3.
9
.    Grenier,
First Way of War
, 201â2; Richter,
Facing East from Indian Country
, 224â25.
10
.  Calloway,
Shawnees and the War for America
, 137. See also Edmunds,
Tecumseh and the Quest for American Indian Leadership
; and Dowd,
Spirited Resistance
.
11
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 206.
12
.  Ibid., 206â7.
13
.  Ibid., 207â8.
14
.  Quoted in Richter,
Facing East from Indian Country
, 231.
15
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 209â10, 213.
16
.  Ibid., 172.
17
.  Ibid., 174â75.
18
.  Remini,
Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars
, 32.
19
.  Grenier,
First Way of War
, 176â77.
20
.  Ibid., 181, 184.
21
.  Ibid., 181â87.
22
.  Ibid., 187â92.
23
.  Ibid., 192â93.
24
.  Ibid., 205.
25
.  Ibid., 221â22.
Epigraph: Fanon,
Wretched of the Earth
, 33.
1
.    See Tucker and Hendrickson,
Empire of Liberty
.
2
.    Wilentz,
Rise of American Democracy
, 109â11; Dowd,
Spirited Resistance
, 163â64.
3
.    See Anderson and Cayton,
Dominion of War.
4
.    Quoted in Phillips,
Cousins' Wars
, 3.
5
.    Grenier,
First Way of War
, 220.
6
.    Ibid., 214â15.