September 2023 MBR The Native American Studies Shelf

The Native American Studies Shelf

Indigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the Present
Greg Olson
University of Missouri Press
113 Heinkel Bldg., 201 S. 7th Street, Columbia, MO 65211
https://upress.missouri.edu
9780826222824, $40.00, HC, 448pp

https://www.amazon.com/Indigenous-Missourians-Ancient-Societies-Present/dp/082622282X

Synopsis: The history of Indigenous people in present-day Missouri is far more nuanced, complex, and vibrant than the often-told tragic stories of conflict with white settlers and forced Indian removal would lead us to believe. With the publication of "Indigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the Present", Greg Olson presents the Show Me State's Indigenous past as one spanning twelve millennia of Native presence, resilience, and evolution. While previous Missouri histories have tended to include Indigenous people only during periods when they constituted a threat to the state's white settlement, Olson shows us the continuous presence of Native people that includes the present day.

Beginning thousands of years before the state of Missouri existed, Olson recounts how centuries of inventiveness and adaptability enabled Native people to create innovations in pottery, agriculture, architecture, weaponry, and intertribal diplomacy. Olson also shows how the resilience of Indigenous people like the Osages allowed them to thrive as fur traders, even as settler colonialists waged an all-out policy of cultural genocide against them.

Though the state of Missouri claimed to have forced Indigenous people from its borders after the 1830s, Olson uses U.S. Census records and government rolls from the allotment period to show that thousands remained. In the end, he argues that, with a current population of 27,000 Indigenous people, Missouri remains very much a part of Indian Country, and that Indigenous history is Missouri history.

Critique: Presented in a path-breaking narrative, "Indigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the Present" is a seminal and groundbreaking work of meticulous and impressive research. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Indigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the Present" is informatively enhanced for the reader with the inclusions of Illustrations and Maps, forty-two pages of Notes, a twenty page Bibliography, and a twenty-nine page Index. While also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $38.00), "Indigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the Present" is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to academic and community library Native American History and Missouri History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Greg Olson served as the Curator of Exhibits and Special Projects at the Missouri State Archives from 2000-2018 and is the author of six books, including: The Ioway in Missouri; Voodoo Priests, Noble Savages, and Ozark Gypsies: The Life of Folklorist Mary Alicia Owen; and Ioway Life: Reservation and Reform, 1837-1860.

Indians and Other Misnomers of the Upper Great Lakes
Phil Bellfy
Ziibi Press
https://ziibipress.wordpress.com
c/o Loving Healing Press
www.lovinghealing.com
9781615997435, $42.95, HC, 162pp

https://www.amazon.com/Indians-Other-Misnomers-Upper-Great/dp/1615997431

Synopsis: No less than 27 out of the 50 states' names in the USA are based in Native American languages. Additionally, six out of 13 of Canada's provinces and territories have names with indigenous origins, and, of course, Canada itself is derived from an indigenous source.

Shakespeare once quipped, "What's in a name?" A lot, it turns out, because states like California and Florida reflect their Spanish history; here, in the Great Lakes, that history is indigenous. If you have an understanding of the name of a place, its history may reveal itself. And that history will, most likely, enrich your own life and your place in it.

With the publication of "Indians and Other Misnomers of the Upper Great Lakes: The True Indigenous Origins of Geographic Place Names", Professor Emeritus and Native American Phil Bellfy invites the reader on a geographical Native American place named journey through Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as we alphabetically traverse indigenous place names in each locale.

Alternately, the reader can peruse an alphabetical concordance of every place name. In the appendices will be found details of US and Canadian treaties with indigenous people, and many that are still under dispute today -- including the Anishinaabek, Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi, Miami, Kickapoo, Sauk, Sioux, Ojibway, Mississauga, Mohawk, Algonquin, Iroquois, Huron, and related First Nations bands in Ontario.

Critique: A unique, fascinating, and impressively informative approach to American and Native American history, "Indians and Other Misnomers of the Upper Great Lakes: The True Indigenous Origins of Geographic Place Names" is an especially recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library American History and Native American history collections and supplemental Indigenous People curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Indians and Other Misnomers of the Upper Great Lakes: The True Indigenous Origins of Geographic Place Names" is also available in a paperback edition (9781615997428, $25.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.95).

Editorial Note: Phil Bellfy is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa, and Professor Emeritus of American Indian Studies, Michigan State University. He resides in Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula near Sault Ste. Marie. Dr. Bellfy is also the Founder and a Co-Director of Center for the Study of Indigenous Border Issues (CSIBI) and serves as the Editor and Publisher of its education imprint, the Ziibi Press. His works include: UP Colony: A Brief History of Resource Exploitation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, with a Focus on Sault Manufacturing. Ziibi Press, 2021. Three Fires Unity: The Anishnaabeg of the Lake Huron Borderlands. Indians and Other Misnomers: a Cross-referenced Dictionary of the People, Persons, and Places of Native North America. First Americans Engagement Calendar (co-authored with Judith Dupre).

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