What do you think?
Rate this book
Indigenous Citizens: Native Americans' Fight for Sovereignty, 1776-2025
A sweeping history of Native Americans’ fraught relationship with US citizenship and their efforts to protect tribal sovereignty.
Indigenous Citizens chronicles Native Americans’ extraordinary resilience and resistance to colonialism, coercive assimilation programs such as Indian Boarding Schools, and white Americans’ backlash against their treaty rights, from the American Revolution to the 2024 election. It highlights their efforts to both preserve tribal sovereignty and secure the civil rights accorded to other Americans, a dual citizenship codified in the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. Covering the arc of American history, Paul C. Rosier reveals Indigenous Americans’ vision of a country that lives up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Through patriotic military service, activism, and political writings Native Americans championed their belief in a multicultural America that honored its legal obligations as it assumed international prominence in the twentieth century. Indigenous Citizens is unique in its breadth, its focus on the evolution of Native peoples’ dual allegiances, and its coverage of twenty–first–century Indigenous issues.
Indigenous Citizens chronicles Native Americans’ extraordinary resilience and resistance to colonialism, coercive assimilation programs such as Indian Boarding Schools, and white Americans’ backlash against their treaty rights, from the American Revolution to the 2024 election. It highlights their efforts to both preserve tribal sovereignty and secure the civil rights accorded to other Americans, a dual citizenship codified in the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. Covering the arc of American history, Paul C. Rosier reveals Indigenous Americans’ vision of a country that lives up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Through patriotic military service, activism, and political writings Native Americans championed their belief in a multicultural America that honored its legal obligations as it assumed international prominence in the twentieth century. Indigenous Citizens is unique in its breadth, its focus on the evolution of Native peoples’ dual allegiances, and its coverage of twenty–first–century Indigenous issues.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2026
3 people are currently reading
3901 people want to read
About the author
Paul C. Rosier
21 books12 followersPaul C. Rosier is professor of history and director of the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University. Author of Indigenous Citizens: Native Americans' Fight for Sovereignty, 1776-2025 and Serving Their Country: American Indian Politics in the Twentieth Century, he is a recipient of the American Indian National Book Award. He lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A huge thanks to Paul C. Rosier, W.W Norton & Co., and NetGalley for early access to this title in exchange for my review!
“It was enough that they were Indians.” — Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, 1833
If you aren't furious about the treatment of Native Americans, you should be. This book will rightfully cement that feeling.
Indigenous Citizens takes you through several stages of the last few hundred years up to the present day, highlighting the Native Americans' continuous quest for equality and acceptance on the soil that was theirs first. It documents the slow suffocation of Native American culture, as well as the coloniser's forced-assimilation of the Natives into white 'American' culture.
Very often with nonfiction titles I read them in small doses over a lengthy period, in order to make notes and think about the subject matter at hand. But this book made me deviate slightly: I found I simply could not put it down, especially in the early chapters. The more I read, the more I needed to read. The more I learned, the more I needed to know if the horrifying and infuriating information I'd read on the previous page was the worst of it. On many occasions, I found myself to be so, so wrong.
The chapter on Indian boarding schools was a particular jaw-dropper, so much so that I would be remiss if I didn't give it a special mention. It was harrowing to learn about the ways in which Native children were torn from their families during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, often at gunpoint, to be forced into boarding schools — where the goal was to make them into loyal, obedient Christians and teach them skills so that they may serve adequately as future servants in the homes of white 'Americans'. Not only that, but they were brainwashed into believing that they should "welcome the ruin" of their lands.
I'm sure most, if not all, of you reading this review have heard of the term "the American Dream", the tenets of which stem from the Declaration of Independence. Remember the ideal of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? This book perfectly demonstrates the ugly truth: that white coloniser 'Americans' did not believe that such an ideal should extend to the Natives. Unfortunately, as the closing chapter proves to us, this remains a widely-held opinion within the current administration.
I highly recommend this book and it is certainly a necessary addition to this critical topic. The author's writing style is fantastic — it's a clear, no-nonsense tone that doesn't hold your hand through these uncomfortable topics, nor should it. My only small gripe is that it felt as though the momentum tapered somewhat in the latter chapters, which lean more heavily into academic density and may be less accessible to non-specialist readers.
“It was enough that they were Indians.” — Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, 1833
If you aren't furious about the treatment of Native Americans, you should be. This book will rightfully cement that feeling.
Indigenous Citizens takes you through several stages of the last few hundred years up to the present day, highlighting the Native Americans' continuous quest for equality and acceptance on the soil that was theirs first. It documents the slow suffocation of Native American culture, as well as the coloniser's forced-assimilation of the Natives into white 'American' culture.
Very often with nonfiction titles I read them in small doses over a lengthy period, in order to make notes and think about the subject matter at hand. But this book made me deviate slightly: I found I simply could not put it down, especially in the early chapters. The more I read, the more I needed to read. The more I learned, the more I needed to know if the horrifying and infuriating information I'd read on the previous page was the worst of it. On many occasions, I found myself to be so, so wrong.
The chapter on Indian boarding schools was a particular jaw-dropper, so much so that I would be remiss if I didn't give it a special mention. It was harrowing to learn about the ways in which Native children were torn from their families during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, often at gunpoint, to be forced into boarding schools — where the goal was to make them into loyal, obedient Christians and teach them skills so that they may serve adequately as future servants in the homes of white 'Americans'. Not only that, but they were brainwashed into believing that they should "welcome the ruin" of their lands.
I'm sure most, if not all, of you reading this review have heard of the term "the American Dream", the tenets of which stem from the Declaration of Independence. Remember the ideal of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? This book perfectly demonstrates the ugly truth: that white coloniser 'Americans' did not believe that such an ideal should extend to the Natives. Unfortunately, as the closing chapter proves to us, this remains a widely-held opinion within the current administration.
I highly recommend this book and it is certainly a necessary addition to this critical topic. The author's writing style is fantastic — it's a clear, no-nonsense tone that doesn't hold your hand through these uncomfortable topics, nor should it. My only small gripe is that it felt as though the momentum tapered somewhat in the latter chapters, which lean more heavily into academic density and may be less accessible to non-specialist readers.
March 24, 2026
This book examines a complicated topic in Native American history - the question of both tribal nation and American citizenship. From the earliest colonial days and even the early years after the founding of the United States, there was no question that the native nations were, in fact, sovereign nations and were usually dealt with as such. But with Indian relocation in the 1820s and 1830s, things got complicated. There were still treaties that supposedly honored the rights of native nations, but as they were shuffled to less arable land and smaller and smaller tracts of bad land, the native nations became more dependent on treaties to provide food.
With the 1924 citizenship act, the indigenous populations were supposedly granted dual citizenship - American and tribal. It was in name only, and was just one of many attempts of the federal government to trade citizenship for what little land and resources the tribes had left.
Rosier follows this trend through the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st. He also points out that many native nations themselves had difficulty in determining who qualified as a citizen as marriages between native and whites as well as between tribal groups added to the confusion.
This is an interesting look at Native American history from a different perspective than we normally see.
With the 1924 citizenship act, the indigenous populations were supposedly granted dual citizenship - American and tribal. It was in name only, and was just one of many attempts of the federal government to trade citizenship for what little land and resources the tribes had left.
Rosier follows this trend through the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st. He also points out that many native nations themselves had difficulty in determining who qualified as a citizen as marriages between native and whites as well as between tribal groups added to the confusion.
This is an interesting look at Native American history from a different perspective than we normally see.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thanks to NetGalley and WW Norton & Company for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.
Rosier has written a compelling book about Native Americans and the abhorrent way that the US government has treated them from the beginning.
I did find it quite dry and academic - Rosier uses a lot of quotes, which can be nice, but I did start to wish he's put some of them in his own words, especially some of the older quotes.
However, it definitely worth a read - even when you think you know how badly they were treated, you've just hit the tip of the iceberg.
Rosier has written a compelling book about Native Americans and the abhorrent way that the US government has treated them from the beginning.
I did find it quite dry and academic - Rosier uses a lot of quotes, which can be nice, but I did start to wish he's put some of them in his own words, especially some of the older quotes.
However, it definitely worth a read - even when you think you know how badly they were treated, you've just hit the tip of the iceberg.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews