Author's Note
Introduction: This Land
One: Follow the Corn
Two: Culture of Conquest
Three: Cult of the Covenant
Four: Bloody Footprints
Five: Birth of a Nation
Six: The Last of the Mohicans and Andrew Jackson’s White
Republic
Seven: Sea to Shining Sea
Eight: “Indian Country”
Nine: US Triumphalism and Peacetime Colonialism
Ten: Ghost Dance Prophesy: A Nation is Coming
Eleven: The Doctrine of Discovery
Conclusion: The Future of the United States
Acknowledgments
Suggested Reading
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. Dunbar-Ortiz is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, and is the author or editor of many books, including Not "A Nation of Immigrants."Winner of the American Book Award (2015). She lives in San Francisco. Connect with her at reddirtsite.com or on Twitter @rdunbaro.
This is an important book – important for truth, important for
justice, important for opening new dialogues, and important for
addressing the continuing colonial domination of indigenous nations
within the borders of the United States."
—The Cherokee One Feather
“Meticulously documented, this thought-provoking treatise is sure
to generate discussion.”
—Booklist
“What is fresh about the book is its comprehensiveness.
Dunbar-Ortiz brings together every indictment of white Americans
that has been cast upon them over time, and she does so by raising
intelligent new questions about many of the current trends of
academia, such as multiculturalism. Dunbar-Ortiz’s material
succeeds, but will be eye-opening to those who have not previously
encountered such a perspective.”
—Publishers Weekly
“From the struggles against the early British settlers in New
England and Virginia to the final catastrophes at Sand Creek and
Wounded Knee, Dunbar-Ortiz never flinches from the
truth.”
—CounterPunch
“[An] impassioned history.... Belongs on the shelf next to Dee
Brown’s classic, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples' History of the
United States helped me clarify my place in this country. It
confirmed what had been told to me by my ancestors: that Indigenous
peoples, from the North Pole to the South, have been here since
before the world was known as round. As a conquering nation, the
United States has rewritten history to make people of the U.S.
forget our past as natives to this land. This is especially
apparent in the Mexi-phobic, immigrant-phobic policies of our
time.
"An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014) helped
me clarify my place in this country...This book is necessary
reading if we are to move into a more humane future."
—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
“A must-read for anyone interested in the truth behind this
nation’s founding.”
—Veronica E. Velarde Tiller, PhD, Jicarilla Apache author,
historian, and publisher of Tiller’s Guide to Indian Country
“This may well be the most important US history book you will read
in your lifetime. . . . Dunbar-Ortiz radically reframes US history,
destroying all foundation myths to reveal a brutal settler-colonial
structure and ideology designed to cover its bloody tracks.
Here, rendered in honest, often poetic words, is the story of those
tracks and the people who survived—bloodied but
unbowed. Spoiler alert: the colonial era is still here, and so
are the Indians.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams
“Dunbar Ortiz’s . . . assessment and conclusions are necessary
tools for all Indigenous peoples seeking to address and remedy the
legacy of US colonial domination that continues to subvert
Indigenous human rights in today’s globalized world.”
—Mililani B. Trask, Native Hawai‘ian international law expert on
Indigenous peoples’ rights and former Kia Aina (prime
minister) of Ka La Hui Hawai‘i
“An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States provides an
essential historical reference for all Americans. . . . The
American Indians’ perspective has been absent from colonial
histories for too long, leaving continued misunderstandings of our
struggles for sovereignty and human rights.”
—Peterson Zah, former president of the Navajo Nation
“An Indigenous Peoples’ History . . . pulls up the paving stones
and lays bare the deep history of the United States, from the corn
to the reservations. If the United States is a ‘crime scene,’ as
she calls it, then Dunbar-Ortiz is its forensic scientist. A
sobering look at a grave history.”
—Vijay Prashad, author of Public Enemy
“Justice-seekers everywhere will celebrate Dunbar-Ortiz’s
unflinching commitment to truth—a truth that places
settler-colonialism and genocide exactly where they belong: as
foundational to the existence of the United States.”
—Waziyatawin, PhD, activist and author of For Indigenous Minds
Only
“Dunbar-Ortiz strips us of our forged innocence, shocks us into new
awarenesses, and draws a straight line from the sins of our
fathers—settler-colonialism, the doctrine of discovery, the myth of
manifest destiny, white supremacy, theft and systematic killing—to
the contemporary condition of permanent war, invasion and
occupation, mass incarceration, and the constant use and threat of
state violence.” —Bill Ayers
“Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United
States is a fiercely honest, unwavering, and unprecedented
statement, one which has never been attempted by any other
historian or intellectual. The presentation of facts and arguments
is clear and direct, unadorned by needless and pointless rhetoric,
and there is an organic feel of intellectual solidity that provides
weight and trust. It is truly an Indigenous peoples’ voice
that gives Dunbar-Ortiz’s book direction, purpose, and trustworthy
intention. Without doubt, this crucially important book is required
reading for everyone in the Americas!”
—Simon J. Ortiz, Regents Professor of English and American Indian
Studies, Arizona State University
“Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes a masterful story that relates what
the Indigenous peoples of the United States have always maintained:
Against the settler U.S. nation, Indigenous peoples have persevered
against actions and policies intended to exterminate them, whether
physically, mentally, or intellectually. Indigenous nations
and their people continue to bear witness to their experiences
under the U.S. and demand justice as well as the realization of
sovereignty on their own terms.”
—Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Associate Professor of American
Studies at the University of New Mexico and author of
Reclaiming Diné History
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