In the hands of the Great Spirit : the 20,000-year history of American Indians

Book

In the hands of the Great Spirit : the 20,000-year history of American Indians / Jake Page.

Summary:

The story of the American Indians has, until now, been told as a 500-year tragedy, a story of violent and fatal encounters with Europeans and their diseases, followed by steady retreat, defeat, and diminishment. Yet the true story begins much earlier, and its final recent chapter adds a major twist. Jake Page, one of the Southwest's most distinguished writers and a longtime student of Indian history and culture, tells a radically new story, thanks to an explosion of recent archaeological findings, the latest scholarship, and an exploration of Indian legends. Covering no less than 20,000 years, In the hands of the Great Spirit will forever change how we think about the oldest and earliest Americans. Page explores every controversy, from the question of cannibalism among tribes, to the various theories of when and how humans first arrived on the continent, to what life was actually like for Indians before the Europeans came. Page dispels the popular image of a peaceful and idyllic Eden, and shows that Indian societies were fluid, constantly transformed by intertribal fighting, population growth, and shifting climates. Page uses Indian legends and stories as tools to uncover tribal origins, cultural values, and the meaning of certain rituals and sacred lands. He tells the story of contact with Europeans, and the multipower conflicts of the Seven Years War, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812, from the Indians' point of view. He explains the complex and shifting role of the U.S. government as expressed through executive decisions and through the role of the courts. Finally, he tells the fascinating story of the late-twentieth-century upsurge in Indian population and resources, which began as a social movement and exploded once casinos came into fashion.

Record details

ISBN: 0684855771
ISBN: 9780684855776
Physical Description: xiii, 464 pages, [16] pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 21 cm.
Edition: First Free Press trade paperback edition.
Publisher: New York : Free Press, 2004, c2003.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (p. 437-449) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Preface: Indian Country -- Initial Conditions -- Arrival -- Origins -- Virgin Country: Pleistocene America -- The First Americans: Who Were They and When Did They Come? -- Hunters and Gatherers -- A Magical Bear -- Pleistocene Overkill? -- Bison Hunting -- Hot Rocks and Hostile Plants -- The Great Basin -- The Pacific Coast -- The East -- The Coming of Agriculture -- Agriculture on the Plains -- Mondawmin -- High Society -- The Mound Builders -- The Hohokam: Master Hydrologists -- Mogollons and Anasazis: Master Builders -- Coda: The Athapaskans -- October 11, 1492 -- Contact and Response -- Mysteries -- Prophets -- Population and the Pox -- Perceptions -- The Question of Cannibalism -- What the Indians Made of Europeans -- The Spanish -- La Florida: Place of Flowers -- Seven Cities of Gold: Nuevo Mexico -- The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 -- The French and the English -- Virginia -- The Northeast -- The Upper Country--Great Lakes -- Century's End -- The Reinvention of Indian America -- The French Connection -- Winnebago Destiny -- Pressures from the East -- Sex, Murder, and Food -- Invading the Plains -- The Three Worlds of the Cheyennes -- Bison, Sun Dances, and the Plains Ecosystem -- Counting Coup and Open Warfare -- The Coming of the Sioux -- World War and a New Nation -- The Case of the Catawbas -- The Seven Years War -- Pontiac's Rebellion -- The Americans Take Charge -- The West Coast -- Indeh -- Removal -- The Rise and Fall of Tecumseh -- Red Sticks and Civilized Tribes -- The Marshall Trilogy -- Trails of Tears -- An American Southwest -- The New Mexico Territory -- Pariahs and Paiutes -- California Onslaught -- The Last of the Great Horsemen -- The Big Treaty -- The Civil War and Westem Massacres -- Peace Policy and Warfare on the Plains -- Holdouts--the Nez Perces -- Holdouts--the Chiricahuas -- The Reservation -- The Humanitarians -- The Ethnographers -- On the Reservations -- Peyote and Ghost Dances -- Final Solution Number One -- New Deals -- The Progressive Era -- Legalities -- Chiricahua Destiny -- World War and Two Dreadful Senators -- Seeing the Light, Dimly -- The Meriam Report -- Watershed -- The Trials and Triumphs of John Collier -- World War II -- Some Final Solutions -- Termination -- Red Power -- Alcatraz and Earlier -- The Militant Seventies -- The Not-So-Militant Seventies -- The Eerie Deliberations of the Indian Claims Commission -- A Dispute Between Indians -- Current Events -- The Rise of the East -- Gambling -- Water -- Sacred Matters.