Book Description
Deceit, compromise, and betrayal were the painful costs of becoming American for many families. For people of Indian, African, and European descent living in the newly formed United States, the most personal and emotional choices--to honor a friendship or pursue an intimate relationship--were often necessarily guided by the harsh economic realities imposed by the country's racial hierarchy.Few families in American history embody this struggle to survive the pervasive onslaught of racism more than the Graysons.Like many other residents of the eighteenth-century Native American South, where Black-Indian relations bore little social stigma, Katy Grayson and her brother William--both Creek Indians--had children with partners of African descent.As the plantation economy began to spread across their native land soon after the birth of the American republic, however, Katy abandoned her black partner and children to marry a Scottish-Creek man.She herself became a slaveholder, embracing slavery as a public display of her elevated place in America's racial hierarchy.William, by contrast, refused to leave his black wife and their several children and even legally emancipated them.Traveling separate paths, the Graysons survived the invasion of the Creek Nation by U.S. troops in 1813 and again in 1836 and endured the Trail of Tears, only to confront each other on the battlefield during the Civil War.Afterwards, they refused to recognize each other's existence.In 1907, when Creek Indians became U.S. citizens, Oklahoma gave force of law to the family schism by defining some Graysons as white, others as black.Tracking a full five generations of the Grayson family and basing his account in part on unprecedented access to the forty-four volume diary of G. W. Grayson, the one-time principal chief of the Creek Nation, Claudio Saunt tells not only of America's past, but of its present, shedding light on one of the most contentious issues in Indian politics, the role of "blood" in the construction of identity.Overwhelmed by the racial hierarchy in the United States and compelled to adopt the very ideology that oppressed them, the Graysons denied their kin, enslaved their relatives, married their masters, and went to war against each other.Claudio Saunt gives us not only a remarkable saga in its own right but one that illustrates the centrality of race in the American experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Enjoyed reading this book
I agree with Gerald Rosen, opens your eyes to new ways of thinking about the history you learned differently in school. Had to read this book for a college course. Great book, will be keeping this one.

The Complexities of Race in America
I will always see the history of race in America differently after reading this courageous book.Professor Saunt complicates issues that once seemed more simple, but I take this as a result of his deep research and honesty about a sensitive matter. The book left me with great sympathy for those minority people who have had to make difficult choices in order to survive in an impossible, racist environment.What Faulkner saw intuitively, Saunt documents with careful research, that we are all brothers in America, literally.The lines between the races in America are tenuous at best, and often non-existent, much more a matter of choice and chance and upbringing than of blood and DNA.

some good facts, but too many assumptions
I'm one of the descendents of Katy Grayson, I've read the book cover to cover, and I was appalled at the mis-information and "selective reporting" that was perpetrated in this book. Claudio indeed obtained information from our family, but as his project progressed, it became apparent he had some sort of agenda to fulfill. The family (who is connected on the Internet) stopped emailing the fellow, lest something we say be twisted totally out of proportion. I think the most glaring example of misinformation in the book is the lack of critical thinking in assuming ANYTHING about the ethnic origins of our ancestress (Katy Grayson's mother), Sinoegee. All we know is, she was Native American, and married Robert Grierson of Scotland in Hillabee, Alabama. Assuming more is fantasy, not history.

I must give Mr. Saunt his due, in that he found many interesting facts that add to my own genealogical research into the Grayson family. I personally have no problems with my great great great grandmother Katy having children with a man of African origin. If any of my distant cousins, descended from "Black Graysons" are reading, I greet you with open arms and hope we can exchange notes. What disturbs me about the book is that it appears to have been written specifically to cause racial strife of some kind. We don't need this sort of book in our society today, I find it in bad taste and a more than a bit disgusting.

If Mr. Saunt wishes to distort sad events that happened 200 years ago, he is a man out of time. Civilization has and should progress beyond anger between the races over American slavery. The Irish and Scots were enslaved by the English in the past. Native Americans were enslaved by each other, and by the Spanish. African tribes conquered their neighbors and sold them for monetary gain and rum. If we were to drag out all the inequities of the past, the hatred would never end. I say, Mr. Saunt needs to let go of his anger, and quit portraying my family history through his selective informational lens. He needs to be more constructive with his research, and quit trying to hurt people by assuming motivations of their ancestors long dead and buried.

Putting it bluntly, Mr. Saunt is a very poor historical researcher, and needs to be more clinical in his fact gathering.

For what it's worth, my family has what is probably the only picture of Katy Grayson, and she is a very dark lady indeed, and very beautiful. I'm proud to be her red-headed descendent. She survived Indian Removal, and ALL of her descendants have nothing in any way shape or form to be ashamed of. We Graysons survived some very tough times by using our brains, and not worrying about the color of our skins.
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Book Description
From the co-author of Lakota Woman, which has sold more than 150,000 paperback copies, comes a compelling account detailing the unique experiences and spiritual knowledge accumulated by four generations of powerful medicine men. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Non Fiction
The story of the Sioux leader Crow Dog.It also talks about his family and previous generations, as well as children.He has a co-writer to get all this down.This isn't too bad, and a reasonably interesting account if you are interested in that sort of history and such books as Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

CROW DOG THE GREATNESS OF THE COYOTE
THE FIRST PART OF THE BOOK IS INCREDIBLE ENLIGHTNING GUIDANCE THROUGH THE RITES, CULTURE AND LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. THEN WE MOVE INTO RECENT HISTORY WITH THE CREATION OF AIM ITS STRUGGLE AND AMAZING VICTORIES; TO MOVE ON WITH PROSECUTION PERSECUTION TORTURE OF THE PEOPLE WHO FOUGHT AND DIE FOR THEIR CULTURE AND ARE STILL FIGHTING TODAY FOR THE RIGHT TO BE WHO THEY ARE. (RESPECT!)
WHEN CROW DOG DESCRIBE HIS JAIL TIME IT IS SO REALISTIC AND SENSITIVE YOU FEEL YOU ARE THERE INSIDE HIM AND THE WALLS, BUT WHEN YOU SHARE HIS FINAL FEAR: YOU ARE BREATHLESS ABOUT TO CHOKE!
ALL THIS HAD TO END UP IN A SUN DANCE.
A WONDERFUL BOOK WHICH SHOULD BE INTO EVERY LIBRARY, BOOKSTORES AND MOST DEFINETELY ON YOUR BOOK SHELVES.
1 HEART!
C

Crow Dog Review
Interesting contemporary information (i.e. 1950s on). Tells of Indian's on-going plight in poverty, alcoholism, disease and lack of employment and the feelings this engenders in them.Valuable history of past Holy Men (and women) and their values.
Since I am very interested in Indian studies, both past and present, I enjoyed this book.

A rich book (17 year olds review)
Crow Dog is one of the best Native American books I've ever read. It is culturally rich and speaks clearly on the injustices done to the Native Americans. It talks not only about the injustices of the past but also the future, like the siege of Wounded Knee. Also this is one of the richest stories which covers the legacy of the Crow Dogs.

One of the reasons this book is so affluent is its personal feel. The author, Leonard Crow Dog, can't write and so he spoke the entire book to an interpreter. This gives the entire book a slow but fluent feel which shadows the way many Native Americans talk, and so the book feels, sometimes, like a story. It makes you feel you are there in every event, and you are connected with the book in an uncanny way.

This book goes in-depth in the religious aspects of Native Americans. The Crow Dog family has always been in the root of Lakota medicine men, and they are responsible for the continued practice of, and the creation of some, Native American rituals. Leonard Crow Dog, the author, was the first to bring back the banded Ghost Dance since the death of his Great-Grand Father. It happened at one of the most important sites in Native American history, Wounded Knee. However, this wouldn't be the last time Leonard Crow Dog would become history at Wounded Knee.

The siege of Wounded Knee, which lasted seventy-two days, is one of the most intense events of the book. In that short time a band of Native Americans, from a rainbow of tribes, raised an independent nation, defended that nation, and fell to an enemy whom had, or maybe more has, no sense of a kept word. The siege of Wounded Knee wasn't actually a siege because the land was a part of a treaty which said it'd be Native American land, but naturally the white man didn't keep their word. It's been more than a decade since the last battle at Wounded Knee and it has been erased from most people's memory.

Crow Dog seems to be more than just a book about the legacy of the Crow Dog family. It seems to be a story about the prevailing struggle that Native American have every day to keep hold of their identity, and to keep hold of their sanity as they are encircled everyday by people how've stolen their home. The important part of the book is not the continued signing and break of agreements with Native Americans, but their spirit to stand resolved and stand with the divine father.

History in the real meaning
Leonard Crow Dog tells his family history and the history of his nation with a love and power which can almost overpowers the reader. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Creek Indian History one of the best
Creek Indian History is one of the best books we have read.It is very informative.We have learned more from this book about our heritage and traditions than we thought possible.Just learning that the dead were buried under the floor of the home was fasinating.It's a book everyone wanting to know about the Creek Indians should read. ... Read more

Book Description
1890 Cherokee Nation Census - Barbara Benge. This book is a transcription of the 1890 Cherokee Nation Census in the same format used by the Federal 1890 census. This census will help to bridge the gap between the 1880 Cherokee Nation census and the Dawes roll done in 1902. Districts covered: Canadian, Cooweescoowee, Delaware, Flint, Goingsnake, Illinois, Saline, Sequoyah, Tahlequah, and Orphans. The transcription of this census is divided into two volumes and includes names, race, age, marital status and sex, with additional remarks by the original census takers. 2002, 2 vols., 863 pp., 8.5x11, index, paper. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good resource, with certain reservations
It doesn't take long for novice genealogists to discover the absence of the 1890 U.S. census, destroyed in a fire in the 1920s, but there's a geographical exception of which only those doing Oklahoma research are generally aware -- Indian Territory, in what is now eastern Oklahoma. The territory was divided into ten districts and the methods followed in the enumeration were the same as for the census at large, with 105 columns in six schedules. This transcription appears to include only the first two schedules: Native Cherokees, Shawnees, and Delawares, and adopted whites; and orphans under the age of sixteen. Information transcribed includes only page and line number, name, race, sex, age, marital status, occupation, and remarks (and there seem to be many more remarks by census-takers than one would expect in a state enumeration). Since Native American documentary resources are so slim, the researcher will want to pursue the more specialized schedules. It should be noted that most of the names as recorded don't sound "Indian." Edward Goodman is listed as a "Native Cherokee," and so is George Wilkerson, though you will also find listings for Sa-gi-ya Bearpaw and Seali Going Snake. As with any census, spelling of surnames varies considerably and Benge has made an effort to consolidate variant spellings in the index (though the researcher, of course, should not assume that two similar names actually are cognates). Happily, data is not alphabetized but is presented in the original recorded order. While I cannot judge the accuracy of Benge's transcription, I saw very few blanks or question marks, which may be either an indication of skilled reading or of exceptionally clear penmanship. While this is a very useful resource for the genealogist who has just uncovered Native American ancestry, I wish the compiler had included a much lengthier introduction and perhaps a few maps of the districts. ... Read more

Book Description

Q'sapi, meaning "long time ago," is a book that traces the history of the Okanagan People. The People of the Okanagan Nation are located in the interior valley of British Columbia and all the way down past the border into the United States. Containing conversations with Elders and other members of the community, this book shares their personal experiences with respect to their family stories, ancestral lines and family photographs.

This unique book captures the oral tradition of the Okanagan by linking these memories through family trees.

Book Description
This book dispels all the myths that have been portrayed as the truth for decades. This book explains and documents the actual heritage of the people who were enslaved in the Americias, the racial identity of the American Indians, what the English term of Indian represents, and why sytematic discrimination and insitutionlized racism is still being enforced aganist Black Americans today? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The truth is finally unfolding
This book is an amazing, eye opening book. This book pioneered a new area of research!

A large amount of so called black Americans have stories of American Indian mothers or grandmothers. These stories are largely ignored by black American families who see themselves as not being American Indian but African. The only link they have to being African is that an ancestor was labeled negro at one point in their history. This book points out that the world "Negro" only refers to dark-skinned people, it does NOT refer to any country of origin.

If you start doing your research you find that between 1492 and 1651 a large number of Indian slaves were taken. If you do even more research you find that any Indian captured "against the united states" was sent to the Caribbean, the same place that slaves were being shipped to the new world!! (a side note: very few, if any,africans landed directly onto North America, all africans landed in the Carribean first, then were shipped out to SOUTH America) Kidnapped/Captured Indians would leave their land Indian, take a boat ride to the Carribean and then Show up in their land as a Negro slave! Entire peoples were being labeled "colored" or negro like the Appalachians and Nanticoke! And lets not forget the one-drop rule....so if you looked too dark, you were labeled a Negro, plain and simple, but all eastern woodland Indians (the first to be seen by a european) were dark-skinned, and would be hence labeled colored or Negro by the one-drop rule!

As for the other reviewer, you are either Amerindian or African. If you are African, then call up your home country in that continent and ask them to pay for your relocation to your homeland and give you full citizenship to your rightful homeland (not residency) as Israel does for their displaced. For those of us who have no political or land connection to africa, we are American Indian and poud of it.

Other Books to Read:
-Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples
-The Olmecs
-The MoundBuilders

Get reading! Get Writing!

NOBLE TRUTH
NOBLE TRUTH THIS BOOK OPENS YOUR EYES TO WHAT I NEW IN MY HEART.
I AM AFRICAN YET I KNOW MY PEOPLE ARE ORIGINAL TO THIS LAND. ... Read more

Book Description
In 1892 the U.S. Census Printing Office published a report on the Six Nations in New York State which collected evidence still used today by the Six Nations to defend their legal rights. This facsimile edition, printed on heavy clay stock, with hand-folded maps, and in the original large trim size, belongs in the collection of all enthusiasts of American, New York, and American Indian history. ... Read more

Product Description

This is the definitive one-volume guide to the Indian tribes of North America, and it covers allgroupings such as nations, confederations, tribes, subtribes, clans, and bands. Formatted as a dictionary, or gazetteer, and organized by state, it includes all known tribal groupings within the state and the many villages where they were located. The text includes such facts as the origin of the tribal name and a brief list of the more important synonyms; the linguistic connections of the tribe; its location; a brief sketch of its history; its population at different periods; and the extent to which its name has been perpetuated geographically.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Scope of the Work
The author summarizes this work as follows: the objective of this work is to "inform the general reader what Indian tribes occupied the territory of his State and to add enough data to indicate the place they occupied among the tribal groups of the continent and the part they played in the early period of our history and the history of the States immediately to the north and south of us. It attempts to be rather a gazetteer of present knowledge than a guide to the attainment of more knowledge."

Indeed, this is a "gazetteer" type reference. Each State in the U.S. is covered as well as regions of Canada, Mexico, Central America and the West Indies including: Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica.

An outline is fleshed out for categories about the tribes associated with each geographic region. This information was extracted from historical records recorded by colonists, explorers and exploiters, and scholars; therefore, the scope of study begins in the 1500's for some regions and as late as 1700's for others. The outline includes: TRIBES associated with that region; [linguistic] CONNECTIONS to other tribes; LOCATION of places inhabited (described by modern-day towns, rivers and landmarks); SUBDIVISIONS (tribes that divided from these main-heading tribes that were described in greater detail); VILLAGES (names and approximate locations); HISTORY (includes mention of historical accounts recorded by colonists, historians, and scholars but this is very sketchy information, providing little more that a sentence to tell about conflicts or interactions with other tribes or settlers, treaties signed and broken, relocation to reservations, decimation factors such as disease, loss of land, wars, etc.); POPULATION (based on census records as well as records left by explorers, and so on. It links decimated populations to wars and disease when possible); CONNECTION IN WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN NOTED (might include wars; size and/or power; individuals whose name is well-known; cultural recognition-- carvings, ceremonies, tools, etc.; names of counties, towns, rivers, and other landmarks with which this tribe is associated).

For what it is, this is an excellent resource; however, this is not an in-depth history of tribes. (How COULD it be? It's already 726 pages long!) It is an in-depth overview of tribes inhabiting these regions over the course of a few hundred years. My only disappointment is that Swanton failed to mention some rather landmark events (Sioux uprising in 1863, for example). The author does note that another text, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America," written by Professor Kroeber, "aims to... review the environmental relations of the native cultures of North America"... and to "examine the historic relations of the culture areas, or geographical units of cultures." Kroeber's text is written for the college student, not the layman.

Publishers' note for the 2007 hardcover Genealogical Publishing edition:
This is the definitive one-volume guide to the Indian tribes of North America, and it covers all groupings such as nations, confederations, tribes, subtribes, clans, and bands. It is a vast and impressive digest of all Indian groups and their historical locations throughout the continent. Formatted as a dictionary, or gazetteer, and organized by state, it includes all known tribal groupings within the state and the many villages where they were located.

Using the year 1650 to determine the general location of most of the tribes, Swanton has drawn four over-sized fold-out maps, each depicting a different quadrant of North America and the location of the various tribes therein, including not only the tribes of the United States, Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and Central America, but the Caribbean islands as well. According to the author, the gazetteer and the maps are "intended to inform the general reader what Indian tribes occupied the territory of his State and to add enough data to indicate the place they occupied among the tribal groups of the continent and the part they played in the early period of our history. . . ."

Accordingly, the bulk of the text includes such facts as the origin of the tribal name and a brief list of the more important synonyms; the linguistic connections of the tribe; its location; a brief sketch of its history; its population at different periods; and the extent to which its name has been perpetuated geographically. As far as possible each tribe, or group, is treated as an independent entity, but the work as a whole forms an absolutely comprehensive picture of the Indian tribes of North America, and leaves no question unanswered about any tribal grouping, big or small.

Along with the bibliography and index, and the imprimatur of its original publisher, the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology, Swanton's book is an authoritative digest of the Indian tribes of North America, and it is the one book that you'll need as a desk reference in your Native American research.

GREAT introduction with heaps of information.
It has become fashionable for politicians to ridicule government spending and waste. Certainly there are occasions when employees have squandered funds on research, but in the early days of our republic such was not the case.

This book, combined with the two-part HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIANS (Bulletin 30 issued by The Bureau of American Ethnology) are great compilations that could only have been funded by the federal government. In dollars and cents no private concern could expect a fair return on their investment that would have been necessary to get the results that was accomplished.

You will have to search long to find the books. Amazon might be of much help. I, however, found my copies at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon.

Contrary to many depictions by Hollywood, many American pioneers fought to defend the rights of Native Americans. Much of America wept for many of the dispossessed peoples - there were fewer of the vigilante types than you would suppose.

I am using these books to compile a web site in Acrobat but expect this project to take a couple years. While you wait, beg, borrow or steal all three books if you want to get a solid, unbiased understanding of the lifestyles of a forgotten people - Bill Anderson. ... Read more