Overview: Celebrated novelist David Treuer has gained a reputation for writing fiction that expands the horizons of Native American literature. In Rez Life, his first full-length work of nonfiction, Treuer brings a novelist's storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present. With authoritative research and reportage, Treuer illuminates misunderstood contemporary issues like sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation. He traces the convoluted waves of public policy that have deracinated, disenfranchised, and exploited Native Americans, exposing the tension and conflict that has marked the historical relationship between the United States government and the Native American population. Through the eyes of students, teachers, government administrators, lawyers, and tribal court judges, he shows how casinos, tribal government, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have transformed the landscape of Native American life. A member of the Ojibwe of northern Minnesota, Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation, but was educated in "mainstream" America. Treuer traverses the boundaries of American and Indian identity as he explores crime and poverty, casinos and wealth, and the preservation of his native language and culture. Rez Life is a strikingly original work of history and reportage, a must read for anyone interested in the Native American story.

William Johnson was among the most powerful and romantic figures in early American history. Beginning as an impoverished eighteenth century Irish immigrant, he became the wealthiest and most influential Indian leader on the North American continent. Married to Molly Brant, sister of the celebrated Mohawk Joseph Brant, Johnson served as a mediator in the evolving clash of the European and Native American cultures. This new edition brings back into print a classic work that will be welcomed reading for all those interested in early American history and American-Indian relations.

The Red Lake Nation has a unique and deeply important history. Unlike every other reservation in Minnesota, Red Lake holds its land in common -- and, consequently, the tribe retains its entire reservation land base. The people of Red Lake developed the first modern indigenous democratic governance system in the United States, decades before any other tribe, but they also maintained their system of hereditary chiefs. The tribe never surrendered to state jurisdiction over crimes committed on its reservation. The reservation is also home to the highest number of Ojibwe-speaking people in the state. Warrior Nation covers four centuries of the Red Lake Nation's forceful and assertive tenure on its land. Ojibwe historian and linguist Anton Treuer conducted oral histories with elders across the Red Lake reservation, learning the stories carried by the people. And the Red Lake band has, for the first time, made available its archival collections, including the personal papers of Peter Graves, the brilliant political strategist and tribal leader of the first half of the twentieth century, which tell a startling story about the negotiations over reservation boundaries.

"First-hand accounts of indigenous people's encounters with colonialism are rare. A daily diary that extends over fifty years is unparalleled. Based on a transcription of Arthur Wellington Clah's diaries, this book offers a riveting account of a Tsimshian elder who moved in both colonial and Aboriginal worlds. From his birth in 1831 to his death in 1916, Clah witnessed profound change: the arrival of traders, missionaries, and miners, and the establishment of industrial fisheries, wage labour, and reserves. His many voyages physical, cultural, and spiritual provide an unprecedented Aboriginal perspective on colonial relationships on the Pacific Northwest Coast."--Pub. desc.

On June 27, 1868, Hole in the Day (Bagonegiizhig) the Younger left Crow Wing, Minnesota, for Washington, DC, to fight the planned removal of the Mississippi Ojibwe to a reservation at White Earth. Several miles from his home, the self-styled leader of all the Ojibwe was stopped by at least twelve Ojibwe men and fatally shot. Hole in the Day's death was national news, and rumors of its cause were many: personal jealousy, retribution for his claiming to be head chief of the Ojibwe, retaliation for the attacks he fomented in 1862, or retribution for his attempts to keep mixed-blood Ojibwe off the White Earth Reservation. Still later, investigators found evidence of a more disturbing plot involving some of his closest colleagues: the business elite at Crow Wing. While most historians concentrate on the Ojibwe relationship with whites to explain this story, Anton Treuer focuses on interactions with other tribes, the role of Ojibwe culture and tradition, and interviews with more than fifty elders to further explain the events leading up to the death of Hole in the Day. The Assassination of Hole in the Day is not only the biography of a powerful leader but an extraordinarily insightful analysis of a pivotal time in the history of the Ojibwe people. " An essential study of nineteenth-century Ojibwe leadership and an important contribution to the field of American Indian Studies by an author of extraordinary knowledge and talent. Treuer's work is infused with a powerful command over Ojibwe culture and linguistics." --Ned Blackhawk, author of Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West "The Assassination of Hole in the Day is a masterful history, and more. Anton Treuer illuminates the character of a controversial and charismatic Ojibwe leader from within Ojibwe culture, and tells a powerful story of loss that reverberates in the present." --Louise Erdrich "This is more than a murder mystery. It provides insights into the evolution of clan structure, tribal governance and relations with the Dakota and other tribes since the time a century and a half ago when white pressure, the declining fur trade and other factors led to the cession of great tracts of land and the people's removal to reservations." --Star Tribune "This highly recommended work provides insights into the challenges faced by native peoples during an era when they were under intense pressure by the federal government to move to reservations." --Library Journal "Treuer explores the life and death of this brash young leader, and delves into tribal history and the intricate machinations of Ojibwa politics." --Booklist Anton Treuer, professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, is the author of Ojibwe in Minnesota and several books on the Ojibwe language. He is also the editor of Oshkaabewis Native Journal, the only academic journal of the Ojibwe language.