April 2023 MBR The Native American Studies Shelf

The Native American Studies Shelf

Great Women of Mackinac, 1800-1950
Melissa Croghan
Michigan State University Press
1405 South Harrison Road, Suite 25, East Lansing, MI 48823-5245
http://msupress.org
9781611864533, $37.95, PB, 270pp

https://msupress.org/9781611864533/great-women-of-mackinac-1800-1950

Synopsis: With the publication of "Great Women of Mackinac, 1800 - 1950", author and Mackinac Island resident Melissa Croghan tells the dramatic history of thirteen women leaders on Mackinac Island in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their linked visions of family and community define this beautiful island in the western Great Lakes.

In the pages of this collective biography, Melissa reveals how central these Native American women were to the history and literature of Mackinac. Elizabeth Bertrand Mitchell, Madeline Marcot LaFramboise, Therese Marcot Schindler, Elizabeth Therese Baird, Agatha Biddle, and Jane Johnston Schoolcraft were Anishinaabe fur traders, farmers, memoirists, and poets who established the nineteenth-century island community.

Among the women of Mackinac, there were also those who sang the island's praises and recorded the lively relationships of the English, French, and American inhabitants. These writers included Juliette Magill Kinzie, Anna Brownell Jameson, Margaret Fuller, and Constance Fenimore Woolson.

There were also community builders who founded key institutions and midwifed generations of island children: Rosa Truscott Webb, Daisy Peck Blodgett, and Stella King.

Critique: Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Great Women of Mackinac, 1800 - 1950" will have a very special relevance and appeal to readers with an interest in Native American History, Native American Women's Lives, and Mackinac Island's storied history. Informed and informative, "Great Women of Mackinac, 1800 - 1950" is a fascinating, informative, and memorable read from cover to cover. While highly recommended as an original and valued addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library Native American History/Biography collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists, it should be noted that "Great Women of Mackinac, 1800 - 1950" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $37.95) for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject.

Editorial Note: Melissa Croghan's family has lived on Mackinac Island since the 1880s. She is the author of the novel, The Tracking Heart, and the book, Cliff Walk: Mackinac Poems and Paintings. She holds a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, where she taught American literature.

Cherokee Civil Warrior
W. Dale Weeks
University of Oklahoma Press
2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069
www.oupress.com
9780806191577, $32.95, HC, 246pp

https://www.amazon.com/Cherokee-Civil-Warrior-Struggle-Sovereignty/dp/0806191570

Synopsis: For the Cherokee Nation, the American Civil War was more than a contest between the Union and the Confederacy. It was yet another battle in the larger struggle against multiple white governments for land and tribal sovereignty. With the publication of "Cherokee Civil Warrior: Chief John Ross and the Struggle for Tribal Sovereignty", historian and academician W. Dale Weeks tells the story of Chief John Ross as he led the tribe in this struggle.

The son of a Scottish father and mixed-blood Indian mother, John Ross served the Cherokee Nation in a public capacity for nearly fifty years, thirty-eight as its constitutionally elected principal chief. Professor Weeks describes Ross's efforts to protect the tribe's interests amid systematic attacks on indigenous culture throughout the nineteenth century, from the forced removal policies of the 1830s to the exigencies of the Civil War era. At the outset of the Civil War, Ross called for all Cherokees, slaveholding and nonslaveholding, to remain neutral in a war they did not support -- a position that became untenable when the United States withdrew its forces from Indian Territory. The vacated forts were quickly occupied by Confederate troops, who pressured the Cherokees to align with the South.

Viewed from the Cherokee perspective (as Professor Weeks does in this study), these events can be seen in their proper context, as part of the history of U.S. "Indian policy," failed foreign relations, and the Anglo-American conquest of the American West. This approach also clarifies President Abraham Lincoln's acknowledgment of the federal government's abrogation of its treaty obligation and his commitment to restoring political relations with the Cherokees -- a commitment abruptly ended when his successor Andrew Johnson instead sought to punish the Cherokees for their perceived disloyalty.

Centering a Native point of view, "Cherokee Civil Warrior: Chief John Ross and the Struggle for Tribal Sovereignty" recasts and expands what we know about John Ross, the Cherokee Nation, its commitment to maintaining its sovereignty, and the Civil War era in Indian Territory. Weeks also provides historical context for later developments, from the events of Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee to the struggle over tribal citizenship between the Cherokees and the descendants of their former slaves.

Critique: A seminal study underwritten by meticulous scholarship, "Cherokee Civil Warrior: Chief John Ross and the Struggle for Tribal Sovereignty" by Professor W. Dale Weeks is informatively enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of Maps, twenty-six pages of Notes, a sixteen page Bibliography, and a ten page Index. While a critically important and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library 19th Century Native American History and American Civil War History collections and supplemental curriculum Native American Biography studies lists, it should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Cherokee Civil Warrior: Chief John Ross and the Struggle for Tribal Sovereignty" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.99).

Editorial Note: W. Dale Weeks (https://wdaleweeks.com) is a History Instructor at Blinn College in Bryan, Texas. He holds a PhD in history from Texas A&M University.

In Defense of Sovereignty
Rebecca M. Webster
University of Wisconsin Press
728 State Street, Suite 443, Madison, WI 53706-1418
www.uwpress.wisc.edu
9780299340605, $27.95, HC, 208pp

https://www.amazon.com/Defense-Sovereignty-Protecting-Inherent-Self-Determination/dp/0299340600

Synopsis: With the publication of "In Defense of Sovereignty: Protecting the Oneida Nation's Inherent Right to Self-Determination" Professor Rebecca M. Webster informative recounts the history of the Oneida Nation and its struggles for self-determination.

Since the nation's removal from New York in the 1820s to what would become the state of Wisconsin, it has been engaged in legal conflicts with US actors to retain its sovereignty and its lands. A legal scholar and former Oneida Nation senior staff attorney, Professor Webster traces this history, including the nation's treaties with the US but focusing especially on its relationship with the village of Hobart, Wisconsin. Since 2003 there have been six disputes that have led to litigation between the local government and the nation. Central to these disputes are the local government's attempts to regulate the nation and relegate its government to the position of a common landowner, subject to municipal authority.

As in so many conflicts between Indigenous nations and local municipalities, the media narrative about the Oneida Nation's battle for sovereignty has been dominated by the local government's standpoint. "In Defense of Sovereignty" offers another perspective, that of Native Americans directly involved in the litigation, augmented by contributions from historians, attorneys, and a retired nation employee. This seminal history makes an important contribution to public debates about the inherent right of Indigenous nations to continue to exist and exercise self-governance within their territories without being challenged at every turn.

Critique: An extraordinary and seminal work of impeccable scholarship, "In Defense of Sovereignty: Protecting the Oneida Nation's Inherent Right to Self-Determination" is informative enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of a number of Illustrations, a four page Glossary, and a thirteen page Index. An absolutely essential and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Native American Studies collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists, it should be noted for students, academicians, Native American political activists, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "In Defense of Sovereignty: Protecting the Oneida Nation's Inherent Right to Self-Determination" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $26.55).

Editorial Note: Rebecca M. Webster (www.wisconsinacademy.org/contributor/rebecca-webster) is an Assistant Professor in the American Indian studies department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. she was also former senior staff attorney for the Oneida Nation. She is the co-editor of Tribal Administration and Governance Handbook, and her articles can be found in American Indian Quarterly, Planning Theory and Practice, Wisconsin Lawyer, Ethnohistory, and the Journal of American Indian Education.

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