
NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY
From the First Migrations to the Modern Nations A Comprehensive History of the Original Inhabitants of North AmericaBy James R. WhitfieldLength6h 24m
About this audiobook
Native American history from first migrations to today's 574 federally recognized nations — a complete narrative of Indigenous peoples of North America: mound builders, Haudenosaunee democracy, Trail of Tears, boarding schools, Red Power, and tribal sovereignty.
In the summer of 1908, a Black cowboy named George McJunkin noticed bones in a washed-out arroyo in New Mexico. Lodged among them was a fluted spear point between the ribs of an extinct bison. He died in 1922 before anyone took him seriously. Five years later, archaeologists confirmed what he understood: humans had hunted here for at least ten thousand years — and sites from Monte Verde to White Sands suggest twenty thousand or more.
That deep past is where this narrative history begins. James R. Whitfield traces the full arc from Cahokia — the pre-Columbian city that at its height rivaled London — through the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's federal constitution (some historians date it to 1142), the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Sitting Bull's four years in Canadian exile, the 250-person massacre at Wounded Knee in December 1890, Richard Pratt's Carlisle boarding school with its motto "Kill the Indian, Save the Man," and the American Indian Movement's 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973.
Inside this Native American history book:
The deep precolonial past — Cahokia's Monks Mound, larger in footprint than any Egyptian pyramid; Chaco Canyon's lunar-standstill calendar; Hopewell trade networks from Lake Superior to the Gulf (Chapters 2-3)
Haudenosaunee democracy — the Peacemaker's Great Law, five nations bound in a federal confederacy centuries before the U.S. Constitution (Chapter 4)
Contact and catastrophe — a 90-percent population collapse within 150 years; disease traveling trade routes before Europeans arrived (Chapters 6-8)
Trail of Tears and the wars of the West — Jackson's Removal Act, Sitting Bull's surrender and death at the hands of Lakota police, the Ghost Dance (Chapters 10-13)
The boarding-school era — 408 federal schools, 53 burial sites, and intergenerational trauma documented in the 2022 Interior Department report (Chapter 14)
Red Power — Alcatraz 1969, the Trail of Broken Treaties, the armed 71-day Wounded Knee siege of 1973 (Chapter 16)
The living nations — tribal sovereignty, language immersion schools, and nine million Americans who identify as Native today (Chapters 17-18)
No other single-volume narrative covers fifteen thousand years of Indigenous North America — from Ice Age migrants to the self-determination era. The story did not end at Wounded Knee. It is still being written.
For readers of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES and Dee Brown's BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory, Psychology
Length6 hrs 24 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
16Chapter 10: Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears
2Author’s Note
17Chapter 11: Manifest Destiny and the War on the West
3Prologue: Before the Word “America” Existed
18Chapter 12: Sitting Bull — The Last Defender of the Plains
4PART ONE: THE WORLD BEFORE COLUMBUS
19Chapter 13: The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee
5Chapter 1: The First Americans — Origins, Migration, and the Deep Past
20PART FOUR: ERASURE AND SURVIVAL
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6Chapter 2: The Mound Builders — America’s Forgotten Architects
21Chapter 14: Kill the Indian, Save the Man — The Boarding School Era
7Chapter 3: The Southwest Civilizations
22Chapter 15: The 20th Century — From Allotment to Termination
8Chapter 4: The Eastern Woodlands — The Haudenosaunee and the World’s Oldest Democracy
23PART FIVE: RESURGENCE
9Chapter 5: The Plains, the Plateau, and the Pacific — A Continent of Diversity
24Chapter 16: Red Power — The American Indian Movement
10PART TWO: CONTACT AND CONQUEST
25Chapter 17: Sovereignty, Casinos, and the Ongoing Legal Battles
11Chapter 6: Columbus, Conquest, and the First Wave of Destruction
26Chapter 18: The Living Nations — Indigenous Culture, Identity, and Renaissance
12Chapter 7: The English Arrive — Alliance, Betrayal, and the Wars of the East
27Epilogue: The Story Is Not Over
13Chapter 8: The Colonial Period — Trade, Disease, and Shifting Alliances
28Acknowledgments
14PART THREE: REMOVAL, RESISTANCE, AND WAR
29Selected Bibliography
15Chapter 9: The New Nation’s Indian Policy
30About the Author