The Struggle for Self-Determination by
Drawing on meticulous archival research and a close working relationship with the Menominee Historic Preservation Department, David R. M. Beck picks up where his earlier work, Siege and Survival: History of the Menominee Indians, 1634-1856, ended. The Struggle for Self-Determination begins with the establishment of a small reservation in the Menominee homeland in northeastern Wisconsin at a time when the Menominee economic, political, and social structure came under aggressive assault. For the next hundred years the tribe attempted to regain control of its destiny, enduring successive policy attacks by governmental, religious, and local business sources. The Menominee's rich forests became a battleground on which they refused to cede control to the U.S. government. The struggle climaxed in the mid-twentieth century when the federal government terminated its relationship with the tribe. Throughout this time the Menominee fought to maintain their connection to their past and to regain control of their future. The lessons they learned helped them through their greatest modern disaster--termination--and enabled them to reconstruct a government and a reservation as the twentieth century drew to a close. The Struggle for Self-Determination reinterprets that story and includes the viewpoint of the Menominee in the telling of it.
The Chippewas of Lake Superior by
This book tells the story of the Chippewa Indians in the regions around Lake Superior-the fabled land of Kitchigami. It tells of their woodland life, the momentous impact of three centuries of European and American societies on their culture, and how the retention of their tribal identity and traditions proved such a source of strength for the Chippewas that the federal government finally abandoned its policy of coercive assimilation of the tribe. The Chippewas, especially the Lake Superior bands, have been neglected by historians, perhaps because they fought no bloody wars of resistance against the westward-driving white pioneers who overwhelmed them in the nineteenth century. Yet, historically, the Chippewas were one of the most important Indian groups north of Mexico. Their expansive north woods homeland contained valuable resources, forcing them to play important roles in regional enterprises such as the French, British, and American fur trade. Neither exterminated nor removed to the semiarid Great Plains, the Lake Superior bands have remained on their native lands and for the past century have continued to develop their interests in lumbering, fishing, farming, mining, shipping, and tourism. Now, for the first time in three hundred years, white domination is no longer the major theme of Chippewa life. The chains of paternalism have been broken. The possessors of many federal and state contracts, confident in their administrative ability, proud of their Indian heritage, and well organized politically, the Lake Superior bands are determined to chart their own course. In bringing his readers this overview of the Chippewa experience, the author emphasizes major themes for the entire sweep of Lake Superior Chippewa history. He focuses in detail on events, regions, and reservations which illustrate those themes. Historians, ethnologists, other Indian tribes, and the Chippewas themselves will find much of interest in this account of how previous tribal experiences have shaped Chippewa life in the 1970's.
The People Named the Chippewa by
Based on memory, court testimony, and other sources, this narrative recounts the experiences of the Chippewa as they met missionaries, capitalists, bureaucrats, and anthropologists.
Wisconsin Indian Literature by
Literature of the Indian Nations of Wisconsin is a unique anthology that presents the oral traditions, legends, speeches, myths, histories, literature, and historically significant documents of the current twelve independent bands and Indian Nations of Wisconsin. Kathleen Tigerman sought input from tribe elders and educators to provide an accurate chronological portrait of each nation, including the Siouan Ho-Chunk; the Algonquian Menominee, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi; and three groups originally from what is now New York State: the Iroquoian Oneida, the Stockbridge-Munsee band of the Mohican Nations, and the Brothertown Nation. Some of these works feature a cultural hero or refer to very ancient times—more than six thousand years ago—and others are contemporary. These pieces focus on issues of Wisconsin Native communities by sharing Native knowledge and dialogue about sovereignty, decolonization, cultural genocide, forced removals, assimilation, and other concerns. This anthology introduces us to a vivid and unforgettable group of voices, enhanced by many maps, photographs, and chronologies. Literature of the Indian Nations of Wisconsin fosters cross-cultural understanding among non-Native readers and the people of the First Nations.
Oneida Lives by
In this intimate volume the long-lost voices of Wisconsin Oneida men and women speak of all aspects of life: growing up, work and economic struggles, family relations, belief and religious practice, boarding-school life, love, sex, sports, and politics. These voices are drawn from a collection of handwritten accounts recently rediscovered after more than fifty years, the result of anbsp;WPA Federal Writers’ Project undertaking called the Oneida Ethnological Study (1940–42) in which a dozen Oneida men and women were hired to interview their families and friends and record their own experiences and observations. nbsp; Selected from more than five hundred biographical narratives, these sixty-five chronicles, told by fifty-eight women and men, present a picture of Oneida Indian life from the 1880s, before the Dawes Allotment Act, through World War I and the Great Depression, to the beginning of World War II. Despite the narrators' struggles against harsh economic conditions, the theft of their land, and neglect, their firsthand histories are rendered with frankness and wit and present a remarkable picture of an era and a people.
Chief Daniel Bread and the Oneida Nation of Indians of Wisconsin by
Chief Daniel Bread (1800-1873) played a key role in establishing the Oneida Indians’ presence in Wisconsin after their removal from New York, yet no monument commemorates his deeds as the community’s founder. Laurence M. Hauptman and L. Gordon McLester, III, redress that historical oversight, connecting Bread’s life story with the nineteenth-century history of the Oneida Nation. Bread was often criticized for his support of acculturation and missionary schools as well as for his working relationship with Indian agents; however, when the Federal-Menominee treaties slashed Oneida lands, he fought back, taking his people’s cause to Washington and confronting President Andrew Jackson. The authors challenge the long-held views about Eleazer Williams’s leadership of the Oneidas and persuasively show that Bread’s was the voice vigorously defending tribal interests.
Indian Nations of Wisconsin by 
How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century by
In deceptively simple prose and verse, Louis V. "Two Shoes" Clark III shares his life story, from childhood on the Rez, through school and into the working world, and ultimately as an elder, grandfather, and published poet. How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century explores Clark's deeply personal and profound take on a wide range of subjects, from schoolyard bullying to workplace racism to falling in love. Warm, plainspoken, and wryly funny, Clark's is a unique voice talking frankly about a culture's struggle to maintain its heritage. His poetic storytelling style matches the rhythm of the life he recounts, what he calls "the heartbeat of my nation."
Trickster by
Anthropological and psychological analysis by Radin Kereny and Jung of the voraciously uninhibited episodes of the Winnebego Trickster cycle.
The Winnebago Tribe by
This classic work on the Winnebago Indian tribe remains the single best authority on the subject. Based on Paul Radin's field work in 1908-13, The Winnebago Tribe was originally published as an annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1923. It is distinguished by a number of first-person accounts by Winnebago informants and by the thoroughness with which Radin discusses Winnebago history, archaeology, material culture, social customs, education, funeral and burial rites, warfare, and shamanistic and medical practices. Included are Winnebago tales and legends and the first complete account of the peyote religion, now known as the Native American Church.
Enduring Nations by
Enduring Nations documents how tribal peoples have adapted to cultural change while shaping midwestern history. Examining the transformation of Native American communities, which often occurred in response to shifting government policy, the contributors explore the role of women, controversial tribal enterprises and economies, social welfare practices, and native peoples' frequent displacement to locations such as reservations and urban centers. Central to both past and contemporary discussions of Native American cultural change is whether Native American identity should be determined by genetics, shared cultural values, or a combination of the two.Contributors are Bradley J. Birzer, Brenda J. Child, Thomas Burnell Colbert, Gregory Evans Dowd, R. David Edmunds, Brian Hosmer, Rebecca Kugel, James B. LaGrand, Melissa L. Meyer, Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Alan G. Shackelford, Susan Sleeper-Smith, and Stephen Warren.
Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe by
The oral tradition of the Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk, people ranges from creation myths to Trickster stories and histories of the tribe. It is particularly strong in animal tales, as storyteller and tribal historian David Lee Smith vividly demonstrates in Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe, a collection drawn from the Smithsonian Institution and other sources, including the work of contemporaries. Smith himself contributes fourteen tales. In the book we meet relatively recent characters such as Ho-poe-kaw (Glory-of-the-Morning), the famed and formidable woman chief who battled many other tribes as well as whites, threw historic alliances into disarray, and - although she often discomfited the French - married a Frenchman. We also encounter traditional figures, Trickster, talking dogs, Eagle, Owl, and Rabbit, moving through the chronicles of these Woodland people who stemmed from the Great Lakes region. The tales incorporate both the visionary and the down-to-earth. Some are deeply moving. Some, reflecting earlier items, are full of violence.
From Homeland to New Land by
This history of the Mahicans begins with the appearance of Europeans on the Hudson River in 1609 and ends with the removal of these Native people to Wisconsin in the 1830s. Marshaling the methods of history, ethnology, and archaeology, William A. Starna describes as comprehensively as the sources allow the Mahicans while in their Hudson and Housatonic Valley homeland; after their consolidation at the praying town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts; and following their move to Oneida country in central New York at the end of the Revolution and their migration west. The emphasis throughout this book is on describing and placing into historical context Mahican relations with surrounding Native groups: the Munsees of the lower Hudson,nbsp;eastern Iroquoians, and the St. Lawrence and New England Algonquians. Starna also examines the Mahicans’ interactions with Dutch, English, and French interlopers. The first and most transformative of these encounters was with the Dutch and the trade in furs, which ushered in culture change and the loss of Mahican lands. The Dutch presence, along with the new economy, worked to unsettle political alliances in the region that, while leading to new alignments, often engendered rivalries and war. The result is an outstanding examination of the historical record that will become the definitive work on the Mahican people from the colonial period to the Removal Era.
Oscar Rennebohm Library
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