Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

by Kathleen DuVal, Carolina Hoyos (Narrator)

A magisterial history of Indigenous North America that places the power of Native nations at its center, telling their story from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today

“A feat of both scholarship and storytelling.”—Claudio Saunt, author of Unworthy Republic

Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.

A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread across North America. So, when Europeans showed up in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand—those having developed differently from their own—and whose power they often underestimated.

For centuries afterward, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch—and influenced global markets—and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists. Power dynamics shifted after the American Revolution, but Indigenous people continued to command much of the continent’s land and resources. Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa forged new alliances and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created institutions to assert their sovereignty on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory.

In this important addition to the growing tradition of North American history centered on Indigenous nations, Kathleen DuVal shows how the definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant—and will continue far into the future.

*This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains select photographs, illustrations, and maps from the book.

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Indigenous, Native American, American History, Native Americans, Audiobook

22 pages, Audible Audio

First published April 9, 2024

About the author

Kathleen DuVal is a historian of early American, Native American, and women's history. She is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Reviews

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This history took me many weeks to read, not because I wasn't enjoying it, and not because it was difficult, but because I WANTED to read it slowly. I loved the way the facts here speak for themselves. As I read I thought frequently about how different this history is from Howard Zinn. It made me reconsider Zinn and conclude that he was guilty of colonizer-thinking, himself, for the way Zinn saw history as the story of winners and losers, with the Native Americans being more or less hapless bystander-victims to their fate. Kathleen DuVal's history of Native Nations in contrast makes it so clear that Native Americans at every juncture were looking out for themselves--negotiating, fighting, and doing everything they could to protect their interests. It felt so right. It brought my historical understanding to a new level.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kathleen DuVal is not a fan of European imperialism. I know because her book Native Nations spends a lot of time throwing shade. The book is a look at various American Indian nations from way before the Europeans showed up and said, "Oh, look at the place we discovered that already has people!"

I should make it clear that DuVal's intent is a good one and American Indians have definitely been screwed over and their history largely ignored. You will hear no argument from me on that front. However, DuVal starts the book off by detailing all the ways she thinks American Indian history is shunted aside and how European history is treated as the beginning of the story unfairly. Again, same page! But then, DuVal does not stop. She keeps bringing it up. She keeps comparing American Indian society vs. European society and wouldn't you know it, she thinks the American Indian way of doing it is better. It is especially egregious in the early part of the book which is ironic. The first part of the narrative is entirely before European contact. There is no way around this in later chapters when an author would be required to bash the other side (Reminder: Andrew Jackson sucked), but pre-contact is the perfect time to focus on the subject of the book without distraction. It just doesn't happen here.

Now, I should point out that DuVal does not fall into the "noble savage" trope. American Indians are not perfect and she does point out how vicious their wars could be or other less than savory aspects which every society time immemorial has had. But again, often when pointing out a negative instance, she will immediately pivot to bashing Europeans. The sentiment is not the problem. The incessant reminders are the problem.

This is all the more heartbreaking because if DuVal cut all the unnecessary comparisons/attacks and just told the history, then this book would be very good. DuVal's research is top notch and when she finally focuses fully on American Indian culture, I was hooked. It just didn't last. There are also summaries at the end of chapters which are well done but also make the book feel closer to a textbook then I think is intended. The ingredients were here for a great book, but unfortunately, it ended up being just good instead.

(This book was provided as a review copy by the publisher.)

[Minosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liked this book a lot, going to put my thoughts on some of the strengths and a couple weaknesses here.

Particular strengths:
-The consistent emphasis on women and gender. This is something most of the other recent sweeping histories of Native America have not done well at, so I was pleasantly surprised.
-Pretty decent handling of the difficult reality of relations between Native and Black people, especially in the case of the Five Tribes's practice of chattel slavery. However, see below also for more thoughts here.
-All around, I liked the decision to mostly focus on specific case studies in each chapter. Yeah, we miss a lot but it makes the stories more manageable, and actually even for me as a relative "expert" on this history there were things I found new and interesting!
-Relatedly, I found the "cast of characters" impressively handled; there were enough named individuals (and specifically many named NATIVE individuals - however, see below), but often they remained across chapters or had descendants show up later, and it never felt overwhelming or confusing to me.
-LOVED the frequent inclusion of Native historians and scholars by name. We Are Our Own Experts.

Some weaknesses:
-The huge, glaring weakness of this book to me is that there is virtually no content on the entire West Coast. It's like the book just stops at the Rocky Mountains. Yeah, there's the O'odham but that's it. Partly I feel this is due to Duval's own expertise (which is fair, but if you're gonna sell a book on Native America you should probably TRY to incorporate the Pacific coast) and also the grand narrative she makes about Cahokia, Chaco, etc. which does't really reach west of the Rockies. This is, I think, the only thing I would call an actual flaw in the book.
-I am, however, somewhat skeptical of the narrative she makes regarding the Mississippians and post-Mississippian transition. This is a bigger thing I will probably write elsewhere, but basically: on the one hand, the narrative of "we centralized and then reacted against that centralization" IS a story I have heard from knowledgeable Native people, especially in Southwestern and Cherokee communities. On the other hand, it all feels a bit oversimplifying to me, especially when reaching into regions that were never actually Mississippian, like Mohawk country.
-Finally, as much as I think the issue of Black/Native relations was handled fairly well, I don't think there was a single named Black or Black Indian person in this book. (I remember one person was mentioned specifically but I don't think by name.) This is notable to me mainly because we DO get named white people. And it's not like there are no notable names that could have come up - John Horse? Bass Reeves? Olivia Ward Bush-Banks? IMO we as a field of Native studies need to work towards better integration of Black and Native histories.

Overall, I think this is my favorite of the "grand narratives of Native America" books by far.

[MisterPhister · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone in America NEEDS to read this book. This is not a US History book. It is a history of the Native Peoples of the North American continent. They were not exterminated nor did they roll over to accept attempted genocide. Their descendants are alive today and their cultures deserve to be celebrated and restored.

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished:

New York: Random House, 2024.

A revisionist history of Native American history in what is now the United States over the last 1000 years.

Duval, a history professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, argues that too many historians portray indigenous peoples as victims to Europeans and that the collapse of native peoples way of life was "inevitable." DuVal argues that indigenous peoples really held the upper hand in relations with European people's until 1750, when the number of Europeans and the formation of the United States reversed the balance of power in what is now the area west of the Appalachians (the 1850s for the Midwest and 1880s for the West outside of the Pacific coast).

Her most persuasive evidence was the Chickasaws attacks on French forces during the Nachez War in the mid 1700s. The Chickasaws fired cannon on the French position and underestimated Chickasaws fortifications east of Memphis. The French had an alliance with the Quapaw people's at the time and had to pay tribute to them.

Things that stood out to me or should be highlighted include:
- Indigenous peoples warred against one another or made alliances with Europeans when it suited them.
- Many native peoples practiced slavery of those they defeated (it was not a mass slavery that Europeans created in the new world).
- Several groups lived in large cities before Europeans came. They chose to live in a more decentralized fashion during the middle ages. This choice slowed the rate of European diseases.
- The Cherokees formed their own constitution and had black slaves.
- Many tribes supported the Confederacy or were split between the two sides during the Civil War.

A must read for anyone interested in the topic.

[Josh Liller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of my impulse selections from my local public library's New Nonfiction shelf. I have some personal and professional interest in Native American history. I'm glad it gets more attention nowadays, but I don't care for how many modern history writers cover it.

Native Nations is over 500 pages of main text, and it's trying to cover a lot. A thousand years of history is a lot to cover, and it requires using representative examples of a people who often stress they shouldn't be lumped together because they are far from monolithic. DuVal makes some obvious choices (Cherokees, Mohawks) and some inspired choices (Kiowas over Sioux, O'odham over Navajo). The book tries as much as it can to tell a native story.

Some chapters I found very interesting, such as the Mohawks and Kiowas. Other chapters I found more tedious. Generally speaking, the tribes I already had loose knowledge of going in gave me existing points of reference to build on.

Language choices added to the difficulty. A common trend with modern works is to emphasis native names and terminology. Fine in theory, but in practice too much of it in some languages simply throws too many foreign words from a foreign language at me that I've only ever seen written and my brain struggles to pronounce and process while reading (I don't read much about Asian history for that reason). Just one example: after looking it up I'm not sure if my tongue is physically capable of pronouncing "Oʼodham" the way that tribe pronounces its name. Broad linguistic skills, especially exposure to Native American spoken language, probably helps a lot with this kind of book. A lesser challenge: I completely agree with the author's use of Haudenosaunee (and that's at least a name I can pronounce), but after four decades of Iroquois it's going to take some getting used to - especially since "Iroquoian" is still the accepted name for the language family (and mentioned in this book).

Although 99% of the book is written in third person, there were a number of times, especially in the early chapters, where the author recounts some tangentially-related modern personal experience in first-person. I found that jarring, and a bad editorial choice.

The chapter on the last few centuries of precontact history paints an entirely too egalitarian picture of native society that felt like it was treading on Noble Savage trope territory. The author briefly admits what has been described was more an ideal not necessarily followed in practice, but that's much too little too late.

The book does do a good job of presenting Native Americans as resourceful, retaining de facto power centuries past when European and American claimed control, and attempting to use the white newcomers for their advantage - as trade partners and/or leverage against enemies. There is a lot about inter-tribal relations. Natives were clearly not passive or defeatist, and the book tries to capture their perseverance and endurance to modern day. It is very informative.

I started and stopped this book several times over the span of several months, and skipped some parts. I'd give it a 2.5 rating if I could, but I'll round up because I appreciate the effort. To me, this book probably reflects the best and worst of modern Native American history: both providing better perspective free of a lot of past prejudices, while also having insufficient skepticism and being linguistically inclusive to the point of difficulty for some readers. I'm not going to recommend it, but I can see why other people like it more than I do.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Native Nations" is a significant addition to the growing corpus of revisionist history of Native America and Native Americans. This book challenges the traditional narrative that Native Americans were passive victims lacking agency in the face of existential challenges from colonial powers, indigenous rivals, and nature itself. Instead, DuVal argues that Native Americans were fully empowered agents who managed complex political, social, and economic matters for over a thousand years. The book asserts that Native Americans, not Europeans, wielded greater power and influence over North America for most of the past five hundred years and have skillfully maintained agency and sovereignty to the present day. Despite some flaws, including a progressive approach that at times undermines its neutrality, "Native Nations" contributes valuable insights and supports the reinterpretation of Native American history through a Native lens.

Overall, I found the book a valuable addition to the new literature reinterpreting Native American history through a Native perspective. It aligns with previous works in this field while also presenting many new claims of its own. DuVal’s storytelling is compelling, and her scholarship is extensive. However, the progressive stance of many of her arguments can be off-putting and sometimes self-contradictory.

Many of DuVal’s claims seem to be her attempts to address the racial reckoning in the United States since 2020. In several instances, DuVal goes beyond a neutral reinterpretation of Native American history by displaying outright contempt for European or American contemporaries or making claims that lack sufficient evidence. She also downplays some clearly terrible Native practices by suggesting that the actions of the whites, although equivalent, were still worse.

One example is DuVal’s treatment of the Beaver Wars of the 17th century when the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy embarked on a massive and brutal expansion that resulted in the destruction of several other Native tribes. The incredibly violent and exterminatory nature of Haudenosaunee warfare has led some historians to label the wars as acts of genocide. However, in DuVal’s eyes, only white settlers were capable of “imperialism” and genocidal brutality. She takes the Haudenosaunee view at face value, explaining that the wars were meant to “transform the violent and chaotic world beyond” and “enhance Haudenosaunee spiritual and political power.” When white colonists beheaded peaceful Natives, the Natives found it abhorrent. When the Haudenosaunee ritualistically tortured and killed captive Native men, that was apparently just the accepted style of Native warfare. Whites enslaving Africans and Native Americans is an example of white views of racial supremacy. Natives abducting women and children is not problematic because they were “adopted” into the victorious tribes. I’m not sure the women who were “adopted” as wives (i.e., sex slaves) would have been so sanguine about the nature of their enslavement.

DuVal could have made her points as an independent voice, but it seems that she often could not help herself. She could have simply reinterpreted actions and situations to give agency and self-determination to the Native Americans involved. However, it seems she felt compelled to take swipes at the Natives’ white counterparts and drive home a point that not only were Natives the nobles in these situations, but it was the whites who were the savages.

It is interesting that DuVal did not cite any works by Pekka Hämäläinen and omitted him from her extensive list of further readings. This is surprising, as Hämäläinen has been writing this kind of revisionist history for many years. I suspect that Hämäläinen is one of the unnamed authors that DuVal passively criticizes in the book by refuting their claims but refusing to name them.

Despite its flaws, "Native Nations" is a good and important work. However, if you are looking for histories that successfully reinterpret Native Americans as sophisticated and empowered agents in their own right, I would recommend one of Pekka Hämäläinen’s excellent works, which manage to positively reinterpret Native actors without demonizing their counterparts.

[Diana Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's unfortunate that this very informative and well written book will most likely be called a banned book because of the new regime and their anti-DEI manifest. While it is still available I hope that a number of people will read this because it is a well researched and an important historic work relating to the first peoples of the North American continent and how they were tossed out of their beloved home by white Europeans who failed to understand their cultures and worth. Difference is a good thing, it's a human thing, and it's worth remembering. History can be stifled but someday it always breaks free. I do recommend this work as I recommend reading all works written by the American historians.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History for 2025. It's very good.

Similar in aim to An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, which I read about a year and a half ago, except I would say it is approached in a much more scholarly way. That's not too surprising since this author is a professor at the University of North Carolina. Or at least I hope she's still a professor because I imagine her field is subject to the winds that are buffeting a lot of academic areas in the form of an evil that calls itself things like "anti-woke."

In a note before getting into the meat of the history, the author does some explaining of what she does and does not aim to do in writing the book. It's intended as a general corrective of a variety of incomplete pictures of American history, one name being dropped is that of Howard Zinn. I haven't read his book. The goal is to show that the various Native nations in the land that is now the United States of America were functioning societies, with a look into some of the rich history of each of the peoples that are focused on through this book. It's not a continent-wide look and some areas are left out, chiefly anything west of the Rockies or any people whose ancestral home is in Alaska. It's also not meant to be yet another recounting of battles fought and won or lost, so there's not a lot of focus on the parts that had conflict, just focusing on removal and its impacts on those societies.

I feel, upon reading this, similar to what I felt after reading that other Native history last year. People who are my parents age have always been big on "the stuff they don't teach you in school," and it's implied thought is that there is some kind of liberal indoctrination going on and knowledge is being left out. Native history is largely what is actually being left out, not any of the made-up nonsense that those boomers are spouting. For many people I think it remains too inconvenient and uncomfortable to think about the facts of what has been done (and in different ways is still being done) to Native societies that once thrived all across this continent. It does not fit into high-minded ideals of the founding of America - or even high-minded ideals that originate with the freeing of the enslaved following the Civil War - to dwell upon the truly awful ways that the government of the young United States of America was engaged in ongoing efforts to take land from Native people and continually force them farther and farther west, until eventually they were largely penned into what is now Oklahoma, and even then the Americans still kept taking from them in a variety of ways after "Indian Territory" became the state of Oklahoma after enough white settlers were given stolen land and then outnumbered the Natives.

Over the course of my reading this book, the odious flesh-sack currently occupying the office of vice president of the United States delivered a racist screed in which he proclaimed that "you don't have to apologize any more for being white." I always find this piece of rhetoric particularly disgusting because nobody in my experience is even asking that. I don't think that anyone is being asked to apologize as an individual for things that happened before not only I was born but before any of like, my grandparents were born. There is a small ask to acknowledge the harm that was done and to support (or at least not stand in the way of) government actions to try to provide redress for the ways those harms still echo into the present day. It is true that large numbers of white people are failing at this, with Mr. Hillbilly Elegy one of the biggest culprits for what he is doing with his place of power. But neither he nor anyone else needs to apologize for an unchangeable aspect of his birth (the simple genetic fact of his ancestry), only for the choices they are making.

As for the book: It progresses in a mostly linear way across the last thousand years, starting with a survey of some Native societies that existed around 1000 and how those groups were responding in parallel to Europeans at the time with a trend towards urbanization. This resulted in places like Cahokia and Moundville on North America, names I've heard but didn't know much about. DuVal moves on to the downfall of these societies and where Natives diverged from Europe, with decentralized decisionmaking after what was probably a series of pretty awful strong men ruled the cities. Splitting off from the larger cities and scattering created societies that are more recognizable to what we might have encountered in our history classes.

The narratives of the ways that the various Native nations (this book notes that there are many different terms preferred but generally, what were once being called tribes prefer now to be called nations because tribe implies backward and primitive and nation does not) who first encountered Europeans were clever diplomats who recognized the value of European goods. Dutch, English, French, Spanish, everybody who set about first making claims on this continent was basically being taken on whatever ride the local Natives wanted them to go on and it remained this way pretty much everywhere until England flooded in overwhelming numbers of settlers on the Atlantic coast and this eventually resulted in the USA flooding an overwhelming number of settlers farther west into the interior.

One particular way that DuVal highlights this is calling attention to the infamous "Manhattan was traded for a bunch of beads" by noting that in the society of the Natives who traded the beads, this wampum bound the Dutch colonists into the world of Native reciprocity and protection. The people who wanted guns got guns from the Europeans. The ones who wanted horses got horses. The ones who wanted silver got that. And for close to a hundred years, the Europeans were largely confined to small outposts that were on land that the Natives didn't want all that much anyway. It is true that this fact is not what the early settlers were writing back home when they kept asking for more and more money.

Although it's not a book that constantly dwells on what Natives were continually losing, this work does dive in with some greater detail on what was going on with the Cherokee leading up to, and after, the period of the Trail of Tears. That simple fact - that it happened (and was bad, which in many states I wonder now if they're even teaching that much) - is about the sum total of what K-12 education taught me. Anything about who the Cherokee were and why they were being forced to leave, not so much. Again countering the idea that these were backwards savages, in this book I learned how in the early 19th century, one Cherokee developed an alphabet for his language which rapidly was taught across that nation, so much so that the Cherokee had a higher literacy rate than the whites of Georgia that were continually poaching their land. Armed with this written communication, the Cherokee developed a constitution, a newspaper (that was also translated and mailed to their English-language hoped-for supporters), and a variety of other things. These were clever people who were making sophisticated arguments at the American government and Congress based on appeals to the story that America liked to tell itself, then and now, about its gaining independence. Unfortunately, none of this worked in the face of racist-ass Andrew Jackson (we'll get him off and Harriet Tubman on to the $20 some day) refusing to enforce laws that went against his white supremacist ideology. Hey, wait, that sounds awfully familiar in the present day. In Jackson's case it was allowing the state government of Georgia to do whatever it wanted with the Cherokee even when the Constitution said in rather plain terms that wasn't how it worked.

Also in this section of the Cherokee was an eye-opening thing for me: The constitution they developed basically adopted a lot of anti-Black racism that was also going on in the slaveholding states at the time. Some Cherokees even held slaves themselves. Later, even after the Trail of Tears, many Cherokees fought for the Confederacy because those were the attitudes that they absorbed, even at a distance. Which side to take when the various white men were fighting one another was always a complicated question. (Or in later years, much less complicated, as when the Haudenosaunee ((preferred name of people I've known as Iroqouis)) leaders personally declared war on Hitler, not merely going along with the US declaration of war but proclaiming theirnation to also, entirely separately, be at war with Nazi Germany and Japan. Declaring this from the steps of the Capitol: It is the unanimous sentiment among Indian people that the atrocities of the Axis nations are violently repulsive to all sense of righteousness of our people, and that this merciless slaughter of mankind can no longer be tolerated. Hell yeah. Now that's some moral clarity. They did say the easiest way to fight would be to join the US military.)

Much mistreatment did still go on in the time of my grandparents or even parents, mind you, as early- and mid-20th century initiatives, some well-meaning and some not, continued along the path of much older goals of just trying to eliminate the Native societies as separate peoples. A one sentence quote from the official history of the Muscogee Nation fits, I think, to explain a lot of the basic message of this book: "The end of the Muscogee Nation as envisioned by those within the United States Congress did not occur." Another Native scholar quoted within describes what Native societies did as "survivance," that is, where the very act of survival was its own resistance.

Anyway, quite an interesting and enlightening book. At times not easy (more from a general presentation of bad things done than dwelling in any graphic way on specific ones) but that just makes it all the more important.

[Pia Tate · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars actually. An impressive and engaging work of scholarship on Native American history that rejects the idea that US dominance (and thus, the genocide of native peoples) was inevitable. Duval’s best work, in my opinion, is her writing on the functioning of native nations and how they adapted to changes in their environment. I particularly liked reading about the Cherokee newspaper The Phoenix (ch 9) and Mohawk dominance in Dutch trade relations (ch 4). 4.5 instead of 5 stars because (I might be partial) I felt the lack of California and PNW native history.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me a bit to get through this book, but everyone needs to read and ponder what is written.

[Mel Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I find so powerful about this book is that, beyond revealing vast amounts of knowledge about Native history and cultures, it reconfigures the lens with which you view their history. At least for me (who knew very little about Native people in the US besides US policy in the nineteenth century and immediately post-Civil War era), Kathryn DuVal constantly confronts and reworks the colonial, Western narratives about Indigenous people.

Even if you’re not keen on modern history, this is an excellent example of how to balance different sorts of evidence between two communities where one has a more robust historical record and the other does not. This gave me a lot of ideas of how to rethink Roman narratives of the “barbarians,” for example.

Structurally, DuVal deftly navigates providing specific case studies that connect to wider continental trends (balancing the trees and the forest), as well as handles all sorts of different types of evidence. It is, first and foremost, a work of history, but there is plenty of archaeology and environmental/palaeoclimate too. I will say that you can tell that DuVal’s speciality is pre-Civil War history, so the book feels a bit lopsided, but her expertise is so engaging and her further reading suggestions so thorough that it doesn’t mar the overall experience of reading the book, it just leaves you wanting to read more. I also thought the way she connecting historical events to the modern-day was very effective (e.g. “The Colony” musical)

It was interesting to see DuVal integrate climate data into an early modern history. I didn’t always agree with her interpretations of the data, but I think she used it effectively and responsibly. It was also more heavily featured in the beginning of the book and I was slightly disappointed that she didn’t take up the issue of disproportionate impact of climate/environmental change, but I understand not being able to include everything given the complexity of the topic.

In the end, one of the best new US history books since Isabel Wilkerson’s books.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a new view on the histories (plural!) of Native Americans, both before and especially after Columbus. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for May-June 2025 at Non Fiction Book Club group.

The main change popularized by this book is to look at the history of the Native Americans not just as victims but as survivors. The ‘usual’ approach was: the white men brought diseases, locals died away, sad, but now the history of the continent is the story of colonizers. The author argues that while the death toll was staggering, but, like Europe after the black death, the remainder of the local population recovered and in terms of numbers and they were the main pushers, they remained the most important players on the land even up to the mid-19th century. I do not know how this view is supported in the USA academia, but it sounds great.

After outlining the new narrative, the author in each chapter looks at more specific cases. All chapters are interesting and worth reading but here is the list of what strikes me the most.
1. During the Medieval Warm Period there were sizable urban settlements on what is now the USA. When the small Ice Age came the people there, unlike Europeans, dispersed, so the Europeans later met not ‘savages’ but a post-urban cultures
2. Agriculture was ‘women’s work’, unlike Europe and Asia (I guess because they lacked large cattle for ploughing fields) and this gave women much more power.
3. We often look at the Native Americans as at an amorphous unity, while they were just like many European nations – more divided than united, so individual tribes and states should be studied, not ‘Indians’ as a whole.
4. It isn’t colonists vs wilderness, it is a small group (often hundreds) of colonists vs. locals counted in thousands, who, among other thing,s set the rules
5. There were attempts to keep an independent Cherokee state, which actually managed to remain in a changed form to this day. The author doesn’t shy away from unpleasant truths, like that the share of Cherokee slave-owners was the same as of their white neighbors – they actually tried to fit in and even won cases in the USA Supreme Court, but when needed, these court verdicts aren’t binding to ‘law abiding’ colonists.
A very interesting book, recommended!

[Robert Wechsler]

This is an excellent, eye-opening history of what we generally refer to as the tribes indigenous to what is now the continental United States, with a focus on certain nations in each area except the West Coast. The theme is simple: for the first several hundred years of European presence, it was the indigenous who were in charge of the relationship and who, beyond European diseases, benefitted most from the relationship, helping Europeans (to the extent they were reciprocally friendly), using Europeans in battles between nations (yes, indigenous nations were often not peaceful nor anything else that infantilizes them), and trading for European objects they didn’t have, such as guns. The nations west of the Appalachians withstood European encroachment for much longer. In addition, the nations’ cultures are shown to have changed throughout the millenium, especially from a centralizing period to a decentralizing period.

This is just the sort of book that shows how not only ridiculous it is, but also deeply unethical, for the current federal administration to try to limit American history to the misrepresentation and covering up of what happened, so that the descendants of white immigrants can feel proud of their ancestors (or, mostly, other white people’s ancestors), when any mature adult knows that we are for the most part out for what we can get, even if someone already has it (as long as we are in a position to take it).

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I’d still recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of indigenous American people outside of the lens of colonialism. What fell short of a 4 or 5 star read for me was more of a matter of style rather than substance. Several sections could have been more concise and took me out of being immersed in the material. And while I appreciate what the author was intending with the structure, I would’ve found focusing on the chronology of specific nations more engaging.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

This book covers North America from the years 1000-2000 AD. To be honest, the Pre-Colombian years were the most interesting to me.

Very detailed, with lots of maps and illustrations.

A recommended book.

[Peter Tillman]

Nice excerpt:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/a...

Interesting reading.

[Stephan Benzkofer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Native Nations is exactly what every k-12 history program needs desperately. Some giant textbook company should pay Kathleen DuVal more money than she's ever seen to collaborate with them to rewrite every European exploration, North American colonists, and U.S. history chapter. If nothing else, each and every one should have a 2-3 page final section titled: The Other Side of the Story.

DuVal has three primary missions with Native Nations:
* First, reset the narrative to show conclusively that this isn't just history but also current events; Native Nations are alive and present and their citizens are just like us, bringing home a paycheck, raising kids, and spending too much time on their phones. (She points out early that too many education efforts depict Indians sitting around a fire that they started with flint or other primitive tool — without pointing out that the Europeans of the time would have been using the same tools.)
*Second, disprove that these Native Nations were doomed by disease and backwardness from the moment the Europeans arrived in the 16th century.
*Three, tell the rich and varied and ever-changing story of these Native nations over more than 1,000 years not in relation to the Europeans but focused more on how these groups adapted and grew and interacted with each other.

She delivers on all three.

There were too many a-ha moments for me to share, so I'll pick just one, which should be a required addition to every grade school history book:
* Not only were Native Nations not cowed by European explorers and colonists, they dominated them. For centuries. Eager for trade, Native Nations allowed these intruders to stay. And in so many cases, they kept them alive. In numerous cases — notably with clothing, silver jewelry and guns — European manufacturers created products specifically for the Native Nation markets. And original Americans dictated the terms. This power imbalance defined the situation in the 1500s. And it remained true into the mid 1800s on the Great Plains more than three centuries later.

OK, one more thing: The fact that so many of these Native Nations — dozens and dozens — still survive is a tribute to their cultures' strength and resilience. Because there is only one word to describe the European-then US policy toward them: Genocide.

[Hannah]

Excellent. I could have merely read about the ancient city states of Huhugam and Cahokia, their descents, the fact that native people intentionally left consolidated, centralized cities to form smaller democratic institutions is, well, I’m pretty sure it’s imperative to understand.

Not just because it confounds the settler narrative so much, "the end of history" white man’s arc of history so much - and that would be enough, wouldn’t it? - but because it actually gives you some of your own ideas.

In “Creation Lake” by Racher Kushner, one of the characters asks “Currently, we are headed toward extinction in a shiny, driverless car. The question is, how do we exit the car?” And yes, that is the question, isn’t it. Rather than scratch our heads and assume we’re the first to ever encounter a question like that, I get a lot more juice from asking history to weigh in. So, a 559p read that does echo with a classroom instructor’s intonations may not be your idea of a good time, but it inspired me to think my own thoughts in meaningful detail, not to just circle the bowl arguing with the author. Now that’s a good time, to me.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathleen DuVal takes a big look, a fresh look, at the nations of peoples who have been in North America (mostly the United States) for centuries, and she bases her book on extensive research. Many of the things I was taught in school long ago about Native Americans she reputes: the Native Americans had the advantage early on as Europeans began to come live in America. The Native Americans got a lot from the Europeans initially. But then the story starts to shift and it's a story stuck in reverse, as European Americans cheat, lie, and steal their way into possessing more and more of the Native Americans' land, and as Native Americans are pushed off their land and forced to move again and again and again. It's a bleak story, a sad story, a depressing story. But all the wonderful qualities we find in Native Americans both then and now are also described, and that reminds us of all we could have and can still learn from them. I hope that will happen.

[Melissa]

It's one thing to know a thing was done, or even how it was done, and another to realize all of the implications. This book is relentless in calling out the lies and manipulation used to discredit Native nations and people, kill them, steal their land, and try to erase them from both the past and the present.
I've been guilty of thinking that of course the government and settlers knew the land they were colonizing was inhabited, but...
And there really is no but.
I also appreciated how, while the horror of Native history was included, it was not the focus of the book. This isn't about trauma, it's about how great these sovereign nations really were.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me a while to read because it is filled with an incredible amount of detailed information. I do not know much about Native American culture or history, and it was a lot to absorb! I learned a tremendous amount from this narrative, and definitely recommend reading it!

[Alyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fascinating. I love learning history of native nations TOLD from the perspective of native nations and not from the colonists. I also loved hearing about “key historical events” in American history from the native perspective. I wish all history classes were told this way instead of with the European lens. Thank you for helping me learn and grow my knowledge!

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in depth history of native nations in North America featuring the good and the bad from coast to coast. A comprehensive worthwhile read.

[sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

should be assigned reading!

[Birte]

I loved reading this. The reframing of history that generally everyone has been taught about how Native Americans have been victims, which is true but also takes away their agencies. This book shows how they lived and evolved before Europeans came but also after and how their was at first more of an equal relationship and most of the things we heard about happened in the 18th/19th and 20th century. This novel also talked about how histories were preserved, which was often oral histories which aren't taken as serious sources even though they are provable.

There were a lot of fascinating things that were mentioned that had nothing to do with colonizers as well, e.g. a lot of Native Nations had cities but dropped the concept because of how it unevenly distributes power, which was interesting to learn about. I probably will have to read this again or at least passages because there was so much information in here, I can only recommend this.

[Angelique Simonsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant!

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually amazing paradigm shifting history!!

[Dodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Native Nations looks at the chronology of various tribes indigenous to North America, mainly the United States. Kathleen DuVal discusses different tribes such as Mohawk, Cherokee, Quapaw, and Shawnee underscoring their similarities and diversities. When Europeans arrive in North America, the dynamic changes. DuVal's book is a fresh take for me looking at the history of Native Americans. Because some held significant numbers of slaves, they fought in the Civil War. I really enjoyed learning about Tecumseh and his serendipitous predictions impressing Red and White people alike.

While DuVal touches on contemporary Native American affairs, I would've appreciated more about current issues. (Not that I think this book could be much longer.) I've read a little about how Casino wealth has affected tribal life. And I wonder how tribes feel about sports mascots. I've seen interviews with Native Americans on both sides of the issue. This was an interesting read, and I learned a lot.

[Jeff Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8 stars.

A well-written popular history that succeeds in proving its main point: Native sovereignty was robust and its decline was never inevitable. DuVal creates a strong narrative, but the book suffers from a lack of nuance in key areas.

I found the historical comparisons occasionally anachronistic (e.g. applying later colonial mindsets to 12th-century Europeans) and the editorializing frequent. Both of these flatten the historical complexity of the various interactions.
Furthermore, the coverage of inter-tribal diplomacy felt uneven; while we get a clear picture of the Quapaw and O'odham, the complex military/commercial diplomacy of other nations is vague, and the Sioux are surprisingly absent.

A solid introduction to the topic, but it left me wanting more depth and concrete detail on the conflicts mentioned.