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Lexi Wants To Know #3: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (Patreon)

Published:
2018-11-10 02:40:57
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hey! Welcome to the third Intelexual Media Book Club discussion board! We are reading An Indigenous Peoples' History of The United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. To make this experience as meaningful as possible, please feel free to contribute to the discussion and try to have the book atleast 3/4 finished by November 21st! 

Discussion Questions:

Lexi Wants To Know A (Answer this BEFORE reading):  What do you know about the indigenous peoples' experience in America? What are you hoping to learn? What do you remember lessons on indigenous culture being in grade school? Be honest! 

Lexi Wants To Know B: What did you learn in the book that challenged your ideas about American history and indigenous culture? What will you be sharing with folks at thanksgiving?

So for the next 14 days, read up on indigenous history and post any relevant thoughts or quotes (with page numbers please) that you feel are relevant! 

You can also submit questions to me, and I will be selecting 5-10 to respond to on November 28th. 

Files

Comments

Chyron

Been wanting to check out this book out of years...just got the audio version from Audible(haven't listen to it yet). What I currently know about U.S. indigenous ppl is from PBS/Ken Burns type docs I've seen during the 90's along with the various TV shows/films from the 50's to the modern era(think Westworld & Deadwood). I know I'm in for a roller coaster ride of genocidal fuck shit, but it's a history I need to be familiar with. In middle school the class learned about the Alabama natives that killed & ran off the land before it became a state. I'll comment after hearing an interesting chapter, of if something catches my ear.

Meghan ?⚔️?

I know the BARE minimum: Columbus came over, started the original colonization/raping/pillaging/murdering, and the established government has been continuing the same shit ever since. I learned about the Trail of Tears in school, and am aware of more "modern" atrocities like Standing Rock, but I'm not knowledgable enough about specifics, and if I learned anything about specifics in school, I'm ashamed to say that I don't remember any of it. On a more disturbing note, I remember reading many books (accessible through elementary school) from a "settler/pilgrim's" perspective (think "American Girl Doll" type of shit) that painted Native Americans in an antagonistic/villainous light; additionally, I distinctly remember learning in elementary school that Native Americans were "violent" and "savage" in their efforts to resist being fucking colonized, and never learned a thing about how awful Columbus/the American government really was until well into my junior year of high school. Cannot wait to read this book, and will post any relevant quotes/thoughts I come across. Can't wait to shake the table at Thanksgiving.

Sciura

Looking back on my early education about the experiences of indigenous peoples in America, I’m struck by how incredibly clinical and one-sided it was. The most in-depth my grade school curriculum went was really just highlighting a handful of actions the US government took against indigenous peoples over time. And even those actions were framed very impersonally, more “bad things that happened” than “bad things that white people did,” let alone “bad things that white people did and non-indigenous Americans still benefit from today.” Only in college did I get that understanding, along with the more correct and responsible description of what happened as a genocide. I have vivid memories of a professor talking about this genocide as “turning masses of living people into place names.” That thought still comes right back to me every time I see a map of just about anywhere in the US, but especially my hometown: a very, very white suburb with mountains of indigenous street names. I’m super excited to read Dunbar-Ortiz’s book! The histories of indigenous peoples I’ve read so far have focused on specific moments in time (with a lot of them centered on America pre-colonization or on the first century post-colonization), so her account will fill a lot of gaps in my knowledge. I’ll be back with my thoughts once I’ve finished - can't wait to start!

Chyron

I'm on the chapter five...This is a book that should have been taught in middle school, and not the American settler colonial propaganda we've all been fed. Many of the things I've heard so far, I've only become familiar with in the past ten years. I'm listening to be audio version, narrated by Laural Merlington, a veteran theater actress/college professor who has recorded over a hundred audio books. The tone of her voice is easy to the ear with a dramatic flare were it needs to be. I'll power through, but it's a sobering story dealing with the crushing of multiple nations of indigenous ppl on the North America continent, and the rise of what would be later referred to as 'white supremacy'.

Chyron

Just finished the book. It's an expansive historical masterpiece that exposes an American history that many people still don't know the details of. I was about to start reading a different book, when Lex put 'An Indigenous People...' on the reading list, which I saw as a decent sign to check out a book that I knew would be informative. It also convince me that American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) may need some type of tribal-nation status for possible future compensation/ land rights. Unless climate change fucks everybody over. Dope book.

Sciura

All right! I just hit Chapter 10, and it looks like I’ll have to put reading aside for a few days of cooking frenzy here, so I’ll answer a little before I finish the book. This particular follow-up question is tricky, because this was seriously a mindblowing read virtually every step of the way. To make it so I’m not just recapping the entire book (for real, it was THAT enlightening), I’ll answer with a few of the hottest examples on my mind at the moment. Dunbar-Ortiz seriously challenged my concept of history with all of the direct connections she made between early colonial America and the preceding centuries of conflict in Europe, particularly the brutality of the British colonization of Ireland. In any American history class I took, the situation in Europe was really only explored as additional context, stuff like “England and France have historically been enemies,” or “the Puritans faced persecution in Britain as part of a wider religious conflict.” None of my education ever really tapped into how Britain had a history of colonization long before they invaded America – and how that history directly impacted the British approach to the indigenous peoples of the United States. (Sometimes very viscerally and literally… the idea that “before ever meeting Indigenous Americans, the Ulster settlers had perfected scalping for bounty” [52] chilled me to the bone.) With connections like these, Dunbar-Ortiz painted a more connected and coherent picture of the history behind the invasion of America than I’ve gotten anywhere else. Another area where Dunbar-Ortiz seriously educated me was in her thorough documentation of the repeated attempts at diplomacy by the early indigenous peoples towards their invaders. Again, my concept of this was pretty vague and high-level – I knew that the US government made and fucked up a lot of treaties, especially in the country’s initial years. But walking through that early history with her and watching, time and time again, as the reasonable diplomacy of indigenous groups was met with violence and betrayal was just gutting. It’s surreal to think that the colonizers were able to behave that way and then charge others with “savagery.” Dunbar-Ortiz showed me that the stranglehold the US exercised on the narrative around their own efforts at colonization was even deeper and more insidious than I’ve ever been taught, even by instructors who recognized these actions as a form of cultural warfare. I’m sure the last few chapters of the book will be just as revolutionary for me as what I’ve already read, but for now, a quick parting thought that’s lingered with me this part week: the image Dunbar-Ortiz describes early on of a pre-Columbian America with its “systems of roads that tied nations and communities together across the entire landmass” [29]. As I travel this holiday season, I can’t help but look at the routes I’m driving along with this new knowledge. I wonder how many of those roads I've sped along, unaware of even the idea that the way I'm getting between two places is something that may also have been stolen.

Alexandra Ahearn

Hey Lexi, I know this post is SUPER late to the game, but I was wondering if they have a version of this for Black American history? Is a lot of that covered in the original People’s History of the United States? If not, are there any highly accurate Black American history books you recommend? Thank you!