Book - An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

From the introduction: “US policies and actions related to Indigenous peoples, though often termed “racist” or “discriminatory,” are rarely depicted as what they are: classic cases of imperialism and a particular form of colonialism—settler colonialism. As anthropologist Patrick Wolfe writes, “The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism. Land is life—or, at least, land is necessary for life.” The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism— the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft. Those who seek history with an upbeat ending, a history of redemption and reconciliation, may look around and observe that such a conclusion is not visible, not even in utopian dreams of a better society.”

Spanning more than 400 years, this is the first history of the US told from the perspective of indigenous peoples. It challenges the founding narrative of the United States and shows how government policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised by popular cultural figures, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Softcover, 6x9, 312pp., 2015.