Lee Miller retrieves the voices of Indian people over five centuries and weaves them into an alternate history of the continent, while introducing us to the grandeur and diversity of the 500 nations who held this land before the first European set foot on it. Here, collected in one volume, is the testimony of more than 250 Indian civilizations—of the Aztec king Moctezuma, the Seminole leader Osceola, Tecumseh, Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Sara Winnemucca. Through their eyes, we see the shaping events of the past in a radically different light, one that is tragic yet shows courage in the face of adversity. “Extraordinarily moving. . . . A haunting and eloquent anthology that serves as a testament to the courage and the nobility of Native Americans in the face of physical and spiritual genocide.” —Booklist

James B. Finley—circuit rider, missionary, prison reformer, church official—transformed the Ohio River Valley in the nineteenth century. As a boy he witnessed frontier raids, and as a youth he was known as the "New Market Devil" In adulthood, he traveled the Ohio forests, converting thousands through his thunderous preaching-and he was not above bringing hecklers under control with his fists. Finley criticized the federal government's Indian policy and his racist contemporaries, contributed to the temperance and prison reform movements, and played a key role in the 1844 division of the Methodist Episcopal Church over the slavery issue. Making extensive use of letters, diaries, and church and public documents, Charles C. Cole, Jr. details Finley's influence on the moral and religious development of the Ohio River area. Cole evaluates Finley's writings and focuses on his ideas. He traces the important changes in Finley's attitudes toward slavery and abolition and provides new insights into his views on politics, economics and religion. For anyone with an interest in early life and religion in the Ohio River Valley, Lion of the Forest supplies a critical but sympathetic portrait of a complex, colorful and controversial figure.

Annotation In an accessible narrative style, O'Donnell depicts the Native Americans of the Buckeye State from the time of the Hopewell peoples to the forced removal of the Wyandots in the 1840s.

A remarkable multifaceted history, Contested Territories examines a region that played an essential role in America's post-revolutionary expansion—the Lower Great Lakes region, once known as the Northwest Territory. As French, English, and finally American settlers moved westward and intersected with Native American communities, the ethnogeography of the region changed drastically, necessitating interactions that were not always peaceful. Using ethnohistorical methodologies, the seven essays presented here explore rapidly changing cultural dynamics in the region and reconstruct in engaging detail the political organization, economy, diplomacy, subsistence methods, religion, and kinship practices in play. With a focus on resistance, changing worldviews, and early forms of self-determination among Native Americans, Contested Territories demonstrates the continuous interplay between actor and agency during an important era in American history.

Daughters of Aataentsic highlights and connects the unique lives of seven Wendat/Wandat women whose legacies are still felt today. Spanning the continent and the colonial borders of New France, British North America, Canada, and the United States, this book shows how Wendat people and place came together in Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and how generations of activism became intimately tied with notions of family, community, motherwork, and legacy from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. The lives of the seven women tell a story of individual and community triumph despite difficulties and great loss. Kathryn Magee Labelle aims to decolonize the historical discipline by researching with Indigenous people rather than researching on them. It is a collaborative effort, guided by an advisory council of eight Wendat/Wandat women, reflecting the needs and desires of community members. Daughters of Aataentsic challenges colonial interpretations by demonstrating the centrality of women, past and present, to Wendat/Wandat culture and history. Labelle draws from institutional archives and published works, as well as from oral histories and private collections. Breaking new ground in both historical narratives and community-guided research in North America, Daughters of Aataentsic offers an alternative narrative by considering the ways in which individual Wendat/Wandat women resisted colonialism, preserved their culture, and acted as matriarchs.

In Petun to Wyandot, Charles Garrad draws upon five decades of research to tell the turbulent history of the Wyandot tribe, the First Nation once known as the Petun. Combining and reconciling primary historical sources, archaeological data and anthropological evidence, Garrad has produced the most comprehensive study of the Petun Confederacy. Beginning with their first encounters with French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1616 and extending to their decline and eventual dispersal, this book offers an account of this people from their own perspective and through the voices of the nations, tribes and individuals that surrounded them. Through a cross-reference of views, including historical testimony from Jesuits, European explorers and fur traders, as well as neighbouring tribes and nations, Petun to Wyandot uncovers the Petun way of life by examining their culture, politics, trading arrangements and legends. Perhaps most valuable of all, it provides detailed archaeological evidence from the years of research undertaken by Garrad and his colleagues in the Petun Country, located in the Blue Mountains of Central Ontario. Along the way, the author meticulously chronicles the work of other historians and examines their theories regarding the Petun's enigmatic life story.