The Native Americans

by Thomas, David Hurst; Miller, Jay; White, Richard; Nabokov, Peter (CON); Ballantine, Betty; Ballantine, Ian

• ISBN13: 9781878685421
• ISBN10: 1878685422
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1993-11-01
• Publisher: Turner Pub

Summary

Dispossessed, of their ancestral homelands by successive invasions of Europeans, the first real Americans have long been cloaked in a veil of myth and legend that has hidden from us the true richness and diversity of Indian civilizations and cultures. This newly unfolding legacy represents an unparalleled body of untapped wisdom, which even now provides fresh perspectives on very modern problems. The astonishing reality of Indian history, presented here for the first time from the perspective of native Americans, will deepen our understanding of what it really means to be an American.
The archaeological history of the native peoples of the Americas goes back more than 30,000 years. By the time Columbus landed in this "New" World, it was a very old world that already had seen entire civilizations rise and fall through the centuries. These linked continents were by then populated by some 75,000,000 people who spoke 2,000 distinct languages and had developed a rich diversity of separate cultures, all joined in trade by a venerable network that covered the entire northern continent.
Here, in a fresh look at the Americas, is a view of this "new" world's magnificent sweep of history through the eyes of its original inhabitants. It is an inspiring story of their amazing adaptability to a challenging land, especially in the past five hundred years when native Americans were forced to cope with the introduction into their environment of the most rapacious predator they had ever faced: white European invaders.
Spanning a thousand generations, from the time Ice Age man first set foot on this continent to the present, and beautifully written by five well-known authorities on Indian history and culture, this volume is lavishly illustrated with photographs, maps, and, the work of both historic and contemporary artists.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 14
The World as It Was	p. 23
The Long Span of Time	p. 25
Spreading Out Across America	p. 36
Middle American Civilizations	p. 49
Native Farming Ingenuity	p. 59
Life of the Plains and Woodlands	p. 79
Indian Confederacies	p. 97
Blending Worlds	p. 111
The Richness of a Vast Continent	p. 113
Confrontation in the "New" World	p. 125
The Southwest and Coastal California	p. 139
The Northeast	p. 153
The English and the Atlantic Coast	p. 180
The Plains and the Northwest	p. 195
Expansion and Exodus	p. 211
Making the World Whole Again	p. 213
Of Furs, Buffalo, and Trade	p. 224
A Precarious Balance	p. 246
The Shedding of Blood	p. 263
Indian Rebellion	p. 283
Long Threads	p. 301
Native America at Mid-Century	p. 303
Embroiled in the White Man's War	p. 322
Between Violence and Benevolence	p. 335
The Closing In	p. 359
At the Ebb Point	p. 371
Glimmerings of Sovereignty	p. 377
The Twentieth Century and Beyond	p. 384
Being a Twentieth-Century Indian	p. 386
The Indian New Deal	p. 407
Termination	p. 421
Sovereignty	p. 431
What Indians Can Teach Us	p. 459
Tribes by Culture Area and Language Family	p. 466
Bibliography	p. 468
Index	p. 470
Picture Credits	p. 478
Acknowledgments	p. 479
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.