The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

October 15, 2018
An Ojibwe novelist and historian delivers a politically charged, highly readable history of America's Indigenous peoples after the end of the wars against them.Native American history, Treuer (Prudence, 2015, etc.) provocatively reminds us, does not end at Wounded Knee, which is usually the last major event concerning Native people that non-Natives can recite. The population of those who identify as Native has increased tenfold since 1900; a third of them are under the age of 18 in a time when many other populations--including white Americans--are aging. "We seem to be everywhere," writes the author, "and doing everything." This is not for want of trying otherwise on the part of the federal government, which, at several points in the last 12 decades, has attempted to delist Indian populations and seize reservation lands. Treuer's account includes many such maneuvers, such as the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, along with episodes of Native resistance that were not always successful. As he notes, for example, the American Indian Movement of the 1970s, born in the cities, often had trouble gaining a foothold on rural reservations such as Pine Ridge: "Despite its focus on reclaiming Indian pride by way of Indian cultures and ceremonies, and by privileging the old ways, reservation communities were not entirely sold on AIM." Treuer has been through a tremendous amount of literature to write this book, but he's also been out on the land talking with people in those communities, as with one tough Blackfoot elder he interviewed: "He had the clipped tones of the High Plains along with a kind of 'Don't fuck with me' cadence that I always think of as 'elderly Indian voice.' " Treuer closes his lucid account with a portrait of the "water keepers" who gathered from all over the continent in the hope of protecting Sioux lands against an oil pipeline that, for the moment, has been stalled in its tracks through their efforts.A welcome modern rejoinder to classics such as God Is Red and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

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November 4, 2019
Ojibwe novelist and nonfiction author Treuer (Prudence) offers a counter-narrative to the “same old sad story of the ‘dead Indian’ ” in this forceful, full-scale history of the Native American experience. The book’s title references Dee Brown’s 1970 bestseller, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and its claim that, between 1860 and 1890, “the culture and civilization of the American Indian was destroyed.” Aiming to recast how Native Americans see themselves as well as how they’re viewed by others, Treuer briskly chronicles the first four centuries of contact between Europeans and American Indians before taking a deep dive into the “untold story of the past 128 years.” He documents Native American heroism in WWI; the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, which brought New Deal reforms to tribal communities; the post-WWII urban migration of Native Americans; the 1970s occupations of Alcatraz Island and the Bureau of Indian Affairs by members of the American Indian Movement; and the impact of legalized gambling on reservation life. Interwoven with these accounts are profiles of Treuer’s friends and family, and reportage from “Indian homelands” throughout the U.S. His character sketches, of Oglala Lakota chef and cookbook author Sean Sherman, for example, are impactful and finely drawn. This vivid rewriting of the history of Native America should be required reading.

Starred review from November 15, 2018
Treuer?acclaimed author (Prudence, 2015), professor, and Ojibwe from the Leech Lake reservation in northern Minnesota?here offers his own very personal counternarrative to the depressing story of defeated, hopeless Native Americans depicted in Dee Brown's 1970 classic, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Treuer methodically guides the reader along the path of Native history since that 1890 massacre, highlighting not just the ways in which treaties were ignored, or how the disastrous policy of assimilation was aimed at wiping out centuries of culture and language, or the drastic reduction of Indian landholdings resulting from the Dawes Act of 1877, but focusing instead on how each of these assaults on everything indigenous people held dear actually led to their strong resolve not only to survive but to emerge reenergized. Native participation in World Wars I and II, the termination policy and subsequent Relocation Act, the migration to cities, the rise and fall of the American Indian Movement, the growth of tribal capitalism engendered by tribal sovereignty?each of these phenomena is embellished not only by Treuer's extensive documentation but also by anecdotes populated by members of his own family and longtime friends from Leech Lake. His scholarly reportage of these 125 years of Native history thus comes to vivid life for every reader.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2018

The author of astute, heartfelt fiction, including the multi-best-booked The Translation of Dr Apelles, Ojibwe author Treuer uses his anthropological training to offer a new view of the Native experience. Treuer argues that the adversity Natives have faced since the late 1800s has in fact led to a rebirth of culture and identity, firming up resistance and connecting different peoples across the continent.

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Starred review from December 1, 2018

Treuer (literature, Univ. of Southern California), a Leech Lake Reservation Ojibwe scholar, has distinguished himself as an accomplished writer of both fiction (Prudence) and nonfiction (Rez Life). Here he takes on a bold task: a history of Native America from the Paleolithic to the Standing Rock Reservation protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2017. Peoples from all regions of North America are included. Unlike other works that depict the "vanishing Indian" narrative, Treuer's does not end at the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre. Rather, he uses Wounded Knee as a springboard to discuss the Native American experience as it has adapted and persisted since. The struggles of Native peoples, including the United States cavalry's attacks, the destruction of the bison herds, and forced integration through boarding schools, are held in balance with the success stories, such as the Pueblo Revolt, the rise of the American Indian Movement, and the development of the tribal gaming industry. VERDICT Treuer chronicles the long histories of Native North America, showing the transformation and endurance of many nations. All American history collections will benefit from this important work by an important native scholar.--Jeffrey Meyer, Mt. Pleasant P.L., IA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.