The Complete Idiot's Guide to Native American History

Front Cover
Penguin, 2003 - History - 311 pages
This book is a comprehensive overview of the history and culture of the peoples who are now known as the First Americans. Author Walter C. Fleming covers the many different tribes that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including compelling biographies of their greatest leaders. He examines the beliefs, customs, legends and the myriad contributions Native Americans have given to modern society, and details the often tragic history of their conquest by European invaders, their treatment-both historical and recent-under the U.S. government, and the harsh reality of life on today's reservations.

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Contents

America BC Before Columbus
1
Who and What Is an American Indian?
3
An Indian by Any Other Name
4
Tribes Bands or Clans
6
Hatfields and the McCoys?
8
We Were Here First Populating Turtle Island
11
When?
13
Reed Boats and Lost Tribes
14
There Were No Winners
145
More Gold and Blood
147
John Bozemans War
150
The Piegan War of 1870
155
Nothing Lasts Forever but the Rocks
157
The Road to the Little Bighorn
159
One Good American Cow and a Pair of Oxen
160
A Train Ride Through Indian Country
161

Welsh Rarebits
15
The Most Ancient Ones
19
Pass the Mammoth Please
20
Ancient Civilizationsthe Old Southwest
21
The Mound Builders
23
Building on the Ruins of the Past
26
Where and How They Lived
27
The Arctic
29
The World and Ways of the Aleuts
31
Living With the Caribou
32
Basket Weaving 101
33
A Tough Place to Make a Living
35
California Here We Come
36
Jumping for Joy
37
The Plains
40
Home of the Iroquois
42
A Womans Place
43
Honored Women
44
There Goes the Neighborhood
45
First Contacts The Spanish and the French
47
The Invasion and Conquest of the Americas
48
Send All the Slaves That Can Be Sold
49
Taking the New World by Storm
51
French Exploration of the New World
55
Colonization and Conflict
59
The British Are Coming The British Are Coming
60
War in the Southwest
66
Fighting for Our Lives
67
Caught in the Power Struggle
69
Pawns in an International Game
70
Holding Their Own
74
If You Cant Join Em Beat Em
76
Impact of the Fur Trade
78
You Take One Barrel of Missouri River Water
82
Native Americans and the Upstart States United
85
Treaty with the Delaware
86
End of the Revolution
88
The Treaty of New York
91
Canons of Treaty Construction
93
The Futures So Bright Ya Gotta Wear Shades
94
Bossing Indians Around A History of the BIA
95
Indian Peace Commissioners? An Oxymoron?
99
Enter the Department of Inferior Er Interior
100
Exploring the Interior
103
Lewis and Clark Go on a Trip
105
Home at Last
114
From Sea to Shining Sea
115
Expansion and Removal
117
Tecumseh Fights for His Homeland
118
The War of 1812
120
Seminole Wars
121
Round Three? Surrender at a Price
123
Indian Removal
124
Domestic Dependent Nations Whatever That Means
126
Reservations and Resistance
131
The War Out West
133
The Great American Desert
134
Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills
136
The Great TreatyMaking Period
138
Reconstruction in Indian Territory
141
The Army Prepares to Make War on the Sioux and Cheyenne
165
The End of a Peoples Sacred Dream
172
The Last Little Wars
175
The Nez Perce Flight
176
A Broken Heart
180
Little Wolf Makes It Home
183
The Apaches Last Stand
188
Getting Civilized
191
Come to Jesus My Savage Brother
192
Killing the Indian to Save the Man
194
Forcing Mr Indian Between the Plow Handles
196
Splitting Heirs
199
Freed from Savagery? Shackled Anew
200
The Indian New Deal
203
John Collier and a New Deal for Indians
204
The New Bureau of Indian Affairs
208
Back to the Bad Old Days
209
Moving to the Concrete Prairies
212
Urban Indians
213
Modern Indians Modern Challenges
215
Indians Take the Reins Tribal SelfDetermination
217
Who Rules Whom
220
Gov to Gov
221
Tribalism in the TwentyFirst Century
223
When Rights Collide Hunting Fishing and Gathering
225
We Reserve the Right to Hunt and Fish
226
Off the Rez
227
The Rise of American Indian Activism
229
Things Get Really Ugly
231
Everyone Wins
232
A Whale of a Controversy
234
All or Nothing
238
Indian Education Unto the Seventh Generation
239
Preacher Teachers
240
The Natives Go to Dartmouth
241
Education on Their Own Terms
242
Bilingual Education
245
Native American Studies Programs
247
A New Paradigm for Higher Education
250
Bitter Medicine Indian Health and WellBeing
253
The Place Where Gods Come and Go
256
Lost and Found
258
Put This in Your Black Bag
260
Some Very Sick Indians
261
What the Future Holds
264
Gambling on the Future Tribal Economies
267
Paper Millionaires
269
The New Buffalo
272
Reservations Are Islands Right?
275
Protecting Traditional Beliefs and Practices
277
A Revival of Traditional Beliefs
278
The Peyote Way
279
Put Those Bones Back
281
American Indian Religion and the New Age
283
Stand Up and Be Counted American Indian Population Facts
287
Glossary
293
Bibliography
297
Index
301
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About the author (2003)

Walter C. Fleming is an associate professor and director of Native American Studies at Montana State University, Bozeman. He has taught history and culture courses for 25 years and is a specialist in Northern Plains Indian culture and American Indian literature. Fleming is also associate curator of the Native American collection at the Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, and is coauthor of Visions of an Enduring People.

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