Part I: Prophecy and Contact

Early 1600s to Late 1700s
The Arrival of the White Men
Traditional Legends (Micmac, Chinook)
Two legends, one from the Micmac people on the northern Atlantic coast and another from the Chinook people on the northern Pacific coast, tell a similar story.

Part II: Religion

1799
The Code of Handsome Lake 11
By Chief Jacob Thomas
A current leader retells the two-century-old story of Handsome Lake’s revelation and the Longhouse religion that brought new hope to the Iroqois people.

1889
Wovoka, the Paiute Messiah
By Porcupine (Cheyenne)
A Plains Indian tells about traveling from his Oklahoma reservation to the home in Nevada of Wovoka, the Paiute whose mystical vision inspired the creation of Ghost Dance religion.

Part III: Resistance

1811
Plea to the Choctaws and the Chickasaws
by Tecumseh (Shawnee)
The brilliant chief who organized the league of Ohio Valley tribes to oppose American settlers warns other Indians, “War or extermination is now our only choice. Which do you choose?”

1862
The Great Sioux Uprising
By Big Eagle (Santee Sioux)
A participant in the Minnesota uprising describes the hardships that spurred talk of war, the minor incident that triggered it, the tribal politics that produced the leaders, and the battle itself.

Part IV: Destruction By Policy and Practice

1817–1839
The Cherokee Removal 31
By Cherokee Women and Rebecca Neugin (Cherokee)
Three Cherokee women petition their nation to stop selling land to whites and to resist the Trail of Tears relocation to Oklahoma. An interview with a survivor provides a description of the eviction.

1906
The Hopi Push of War 36
By Helen Sekaquaptewa (Hopi)
In a Hopi village in Arizona, those who opposed sending their children to white-run schools were known as Hostiles, those not opposed as Friendlies. An eyewitness tells how the dispute lead to her people’s exile.

Part V: Survival

1930s
Evaluating the Indian Reorganization Act
By Alfred DuBray (Ho-Chunk) and Ramon Roubideaux (Sioux)
The Indian Reorganization Act was one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. Two Plains Indians, each with considerable political and legal experience, have very different views about it.

Mid–twentieth century
Surviving in the Cities 46
By Belle Jean Francis (Athabascan) and Benny Bearskin (Winnebago)
In the 1950s and 1960s, government relocation programs encouraged Indians to move to cities. Here, two city dwellers describe adjustment problems and the need to maintain pride.

1973
Siege at Wounded Knee 51
By Mary Crow Dog (Lakota)
A member of the activist American Indian Movement describes the events leading to its protest at the site of the 1890 massacre of the Ghost Dance Indians.

1992
On Columbus’s Quincentennial 56
By N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa)
On the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet shares his mixed feelings about the event and his thoughts on Indian survival and identity.