Killing The White Man's Indian; Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century - Hardcover

Bordewich, Fergus M.

3.9

137 ratings by Goodreads

9780385420358: Killing The White Man's Indian; Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385420358 ISBN 13: 9780385420358

Publisher: Doubleday, 1996

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In the face of a new lightly romanticized view of Native Americans, Killing the White Man's Indian bravely confronts the current myths and often contradictory realities of tribal life today. Following two centuries of broken treaties and virtual government extermination of the "savage redmen," Americans today have recast Native Americans into another, equally stereotyped role, that of eternal victims, politically powerless and weakened by poverty and alcoholism, yet whose spiritual ties with the natural world form our last, best hope of salvaging our natural environment and ennobling our souls.

The truth, however, is neither as grim , nor as blindly idealistic, as many would expect. The fact is that a virtual revolution is underway in Indian Country, an upheaval of epic proportions. For the first time in generations, Indians are shaping their own destinies, largely beyond the control of whites, reinventing Indian education and justice, exploiting the principle of tribal sovereignty in ways that empower tribal governments far beyond most American's imaginations. While new found power has enriched tribal life and prospects, and has made Native Americans fuller participants in the American dream, it has brought tribal governments into direct conflict with local economics and the federal government.

Based on three years of research on the Native American reservations, and written without a hidden conservative bias or politically correct agenda, Killing the White Man's Indian takes on Native American politics and policies today in all their contradictory--and controversial-guises."
From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Review:

Are the modern Indian nations little more than "reminders of a history that we would prefer not to remember," a guilty afterthought? Bordewich answers that yes, thanks to a century and more of federal mismanagement of Indian affairs, they are. Their people are plagued by alcohol, suicide, despair, and neglect. In writing of our nation's dishonorable dealings with its indigenous peoples, Bordewich asks that we examine history closely and that we take issue with received wisdom. After looking at past and present in this lively and provocative book, Bordewich envisions a future in which Native America determines its own destiny.

From Booklist:

There is great ferment in Indian country these days, one sign of which is all the tribally run gambling casinos that have blossomed like theme parks across the national landscape. They are merely the most obvious element in a burst of development that Bordewich surveys with the trenchancy of an investigative reporter and, frequently, the artfulness--especially in descriptions of particular places, persons, and moments--of a fine writer. In nine hefty, engrossing chapters, he takes up as many large topics--historic Indian-white relations, modern Indian identity, the revival of tribal authority, Indians and environmentalism, conflicts between reinvigorated Indian property rights and archaeological research, new Indian claims to lands said to be sacred, Indian alcoholism, the reservation-based system of Indian colleges, and the promise and perils of growing economic and political cooperation with the world beyond the reservation. For each topic, Bordewich tells both success and horror stories, brings forward credible Indian voices on both or several sides of the issues, and shatters myths about Indians that range from the noble savage to the chronic drunk. Most important, he presents Indians as every bit as complex as any other set of human beings, their issues as every bit as consequential as those of any other set of U.S. citizens. Ray Olson

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