The story of how Great Lakes Indians survived the early reservation years

The story of how Great Lakes Indians survived the early reservation years

As much as the Civil War was a battle over the survival of the United States, for the men of Company K of the First Michigan Sharpshooters, it was also one battle in a longer struggle for the survival of Anishinaabewaki, the homelands of the Anishinaabeg—Ojibwe, Odawa, and Boodewaadamii peoples . The men who served in what was often called ‘the Indian Company’ chose to enlist in the Union army to contribute to their peoples’ ongoing struggle with the state and federal governments over status, rights, resources, and land in the Great Lakes. This meticulously researched history begins in 1763 with Pontiac’s War, a key moment in Anishinaabe history. It then explores the multiple strategies the Anishinaabeg deployed to remain in Michigan despite federal pressure to leave. Anishinaabe men claimed the rights and responsibilities associated with male citizenship—voting, owning land, and serving in the army—while actively preserving their status as ‘Indians’ and Anishinaabe peoples. Indigenous expectations of the federal government, as well as religious and social networks, shaped individuals’ decisions to join the U.S. military. The stories of Company K men also broaden our understanding of the complex experiences of Civil War soldiers. In their fight against removal, dispossession, political marginalization, and loss of resources in the Great Lakes, the Anishinaabeg participated in state and national debates over citizenship, allegiance, military service, and the government’s responsibilities to veterans and their families.

"Everything you know about Indians is wrong." As the provocative title of Paul Chaat Smith's 2009 book proclaims, everyone knows about Native Americans, but most of what they know is the fruit of stereotypes and vague images. The real people, real communities, and real events of indigenous America continue to elude most people. The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History confronts this erroneous view by presenting an accurate and comprehensive history of the indigenous peoples who lived-and live-in the territory that became the United States. Thirty-two leading experts, both Native and non-Native, describe the historical developments of the past 500 years in American Indian history, focusing on significant moments of upheaval and change, histories of indigenous occupation, and overviews of Indian community life. The first section of the book charts Indian history from before 1492 to European invasions and settlement, analyzing US expansion and its consequences for Indian survival up to the twenty-first century. A second group of essays consists of regional and tribal histories. The final section illuminates distinctive themes of Indian life, including gender, sexuality and family, spirituality, art, intellectual history, education, public welfare, legal issues, and urban experiences. A much-needed and eye-opening account of American Indians, this Handbook unveils the real history often hidden behind wrong assumptions, offering stimulating ideas and resources for new generations to pursue research on this topic.

For Home and Empire is the first book to compare voluntary wartime mobilization on the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand home fronts. Steve Marti shows that collective acts of patriotism strengthened communal bonds, while reinforcing class, race, and gender boundaries. Which jurisdiction should provide for a soldier’s wife if she moved from Hobart to northern Tasmania? Should Welsh women in Vancouver purchase comforts for hometown soldiers or Welsh ones? Should Māori enlist with a local or an Indigenous battalion? Such questions highlighted the diverging interests of local communities, the dominion governments, and the Empire. Marti applies a settler colonial framework to reveal the geographical and social divides that separated communities as they organized for war.

This book explores the complex physical, historical, and social factors that have allowed a small kettle lake in northeastern Michigan to remain ecologically and environmentally sound, a gem lake. The book investigates these within the context of local/regional, state, and national history. It also tells a story of how and why a community of residents has been formed in the forest and has functioned as an effective steward of its natural resources.

This single-volume book provides a narrative history of the Chippewa tribe with attention to tribal origins, achievements, and interactions within the United States. Unlike previous works that focus on the relationships of the Chippewa with the colonial governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States, this volume offers a historical account of the Chippewa with the tribe at its center. The volume covers Chippewa history chronologically from about 10,000 BC to the present and is geographically comprehensive, detailing Chippewa history as it occurred in both Canada and the United States, from the Great Lakes to Montana to adjacent Canadian provinces. Written by a Chippewa scholar, the book synthesizes key scholarly contributions to Chippewa studies through the author's own interpretive framework and tells the history of the Chippewa as a story that encompasses the culture's traditions and continued tenacity. It is organized into chronological chapters that include sidebars and highlight notable figures for ease of reference, and a timeline and bibliography allow readers to identify causal relationships among key events and provide suggestions for further research.