An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz — 2014

2015 Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire. In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how 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 in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.” Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

Reviews

Alex Shinsky@shin

Mar 23, 2023

A summary of the atrocities perpetuated by the the US government on the indigenous people in North America, the Middle East, and in various islands around the world. Excellent for introducing the topic and reviewing some major events throughout American history by connecting the themes of land theft, systematic racism, and militarism throughout the highlighted atrocities. I gave it four stars because at times it felt a bit shallow and I would have liked it to have more depth on the indigenous people who were impacted rather than only how the US government treated them.

Roz@irasobrietate

Mar 27, 2022

This peoples' history of the US was well-researched, accessibly written, and brutally honest about the position of the indigenous people of North America in the history of the United States. This is not light or easy reading; the reality of white Americans' actions towards Native Americans over the last four hundred years is absolutely horrifying. But it is necessary reading. Glossing over or ignoring Native Americans in the past, present, and future is not an option. This book is absolutely required reading for everyone who lives in the US.

Laura@readingthroughlondon

Nov 11, 2021

This is a book that every American should read. I found it paradigm shifting, to the point that I would need to set it down often to think through what I was reading. I appreciated getting to see the side of our history that has been actively buried into nationalistic myths.