Frederick E. Hoxie

"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.

Lewis and Clark Among the Nez Perce is a generous and careful re-evaluation of Lewis and Clark west of the Bitterroot Mountains. An extraordinary new look at their extended visit--approximately four months of daily interchange with a community the white visitors regarded as especially friendly, hospitable, and helpful to their success--the book represents a breakthrough in Lewis and Clark studies. Many incidents suddenly take on a new light when the historical lens is reversed.In 1984, James Ronda's groundbreaking Lewis and Clark Among the Indians looked broadly at the Lewis and Clark expedition from the Native American perspective. Nearly three decades later, Nez Perce historians Allen V. Pinkham and Steven Ross Evans examined the journals of Lewis and Clark with painstaking care to tease out new insights from what Lewis and Clark wrote about their Nez Perce hosts. Pinkham and Evans evaluate both what Lewis and Clark understood and what they misunderstood in the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) lifeway and political structure. More particularly, they have scoured the journals for clues about how the Nez Perce reacted to the bearded strangers, gathering and putting into print for the first time the stands of a surprisingly rich Nez Perce oral tradition.The first richly detailed exploration of the relationship between Mr. Jefferson's Corps of Discovery and a single tribe, this volume also serves as a template for a Lewis and Clark expedition tribal history series.

This narrative takes an ethnographic approach to American Indian history from the arrival of humans on the American continent to the present day. The text provides balanced coverage of political, economic, cultural and social aspects of Indian history. While conveying the effects of European invasion on American Indian communities, the text gives greater attention to the impact of Native actions on the American environment. The authors' Indian-centered point of view treats Indians as actors in their own right, existing in a larger society. As a result, some events in American history loom larger than they would in a general survey, while others, such as Reconstruction, receive minimal coverage. The People demonstrates that the active participation of American Indians in a modern, democratic society has shaped--and will continue to shape--national life.

Frederick E. Hoxie is director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library. He coedited (with Joan Mark) E. Jane Gay's With the Nez Percés: Alice Fletcher in the Field, 1889–92 (Nebraska 1981).

This history of the Crow Indians links their nineteenth-century nomadic life and their modern existence. The Crows not only withstood the dislocation and conquest that was visited upon them after 1805, but acted in the midst of these events to construct a modern Indian community - a nation. Their efforts sustained the pride and strength reflected in Chief Plenty Coups’ statement in 1925 that he did ‘not care at all what historians have to say about Crow Indians,’ as well as their community’s faith in the beauty of its traditions and its inventions. Frederick Hoxie demonstrates that contact with outsiders drew the Crows together and tested their ability to adapt their traditions to new conditions. He emphasizes political life, but also describes changes in social relations, religious beliefs and economic activities. His final chapter discusses the significance of the Crow experience for American history in general.