Review: Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked this up almost two years ago as part of my ongoing education about Indigenous peoples. I've been looking for a solid history and this is what I got, although it is primarily about what is now called the United States (so the search continues for one dealing with Canada!). Dr. Kathleen Duval presents a highly nuanced and thoughtful history of various representatives Indigenous peoples in the United States, following them from early contact to today. It is a remarkable work of history.

What is striking about Duval's work is its emphasis on the resistance of Indigenous peoples, which is enough to shift the perspective away from the vanishing Indian stereotype so typical of mainstream history. The story we end up with is one which saw a closer to even power balance in the early decades of European settlement, when each of the colonial powers made treaties and negotiated alliances with Indigenous peoples which deteriorated as more and more European settlers flowed in and the weakened Indigenous peoples were pushed off their land to the West. That part of the story is familiar, but what we see in Duval's narrative is the consistent resistance to those powerful forces until today, when a renaissance is beginning to take grip among Indigenous peoples. It is an awful story- painful, but also inspiring.

This book is really worth reading because it forces us to think about how history has been written on this continent and how Indigenous peoples have been consistent and relentlessly erased. It is a valuable corrective and an important book.

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