Product Description

In the face of a new lightly romanticized view of Native Americans, Killing the White Man's Indian bravely confronts the current myths and often contradictory realities of tribal life today. Following two centuries of broken treaties and virtual government extermination of the "savage redmen," Americans today have recast Native Americans into another, equally stereotyped role, that of eternal victims, politically powerless and weakened by poverty and alcoholism, yet whose spiritual ties with the natural world form our last, best hope of salvaging our natural environment and ennobling our souls.

The truth, however, is neither as grim , nor as blindly idealistic, as many would expect. The fact is that a virtual revolution is underway in Indian Country, an upheaval of epic proportions. For the first time in generations, Indians are shaping their own destinies, largely beyond the control of whites, reinventing Indian education and justice, exploiting the principle of tribal sovereignty in ways that empower tribal governments far beyond most American's imaginations. While new found power has enriched tribal life and prospects, and has made Native Americans fuller participants in the American dream, it has brought tribal governments into direct conflict with local economics and the federal government.

Based on three years of research on the Native American reservations, and written without a hidden conservative bias or politically correct agenda, Killing the White Man's Indian takes on Native American politics and policies today in all their contradictory--and controversial-guises."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #636972 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-14
• Released on: 1997-04-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From Amazon.com
Are the modern Indian nations little more than "reminders of a history that we would prefer not to remember," a guilty afterthought? Bordewich answers that yes, thanks to a century and more of federal mismanagement of Indian affairs, they are. Their people are plagued by alcohol, suicide, despair, and neglect. In writing of our nation's dishonorable dealings with its indigenous peoples, Bordewich asks that we examine history closely and that we take issue with received wisdom. After looking at past and present in this lively and provocative book, Bordewich envisions a future in which Native America determines its own destiny.

From Publishers Weekly
A new generation of politically astute Native Americans is developing aggressive tribal governments bent on resuscitating once-moribund cultures and on managing federal programs without the paternalistic oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Bordewich, a roving editor for Reader's Digest, who spent three years visiting reservations, believes that today's tribal sovereignty movement represents the best hope in decades for restoring economically crippled communities. Yet the movement, in his opinion, is tinged with separatist ideology and an "overwhelming, largely irrational fear of yet more loss and betrayal." Arguing that in some states, Native Americans' claims to water and fishing rights and their demand for sacred lands pose a threat to local economies, Bordewich maintains that the sovereignty movement runs the risk of creating a multitude of independent statelets, some economically unviable and ill governed. His vibrant, compelling, diversified portrait of contemporary Native Americans dispels whites' lingering stereotypes of Indians either as permanent victims or as morally superior beings living in primeval, unchanging communion with nature.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
There is great ferment in Indian country these days, one sign of which is all the tribally run gambling casinos that have blossomed like theme parks across the national landscape. They are merely the most obvious element in a burst of development that Bordewich surveys with the trenchancy of an investigative reporter and, frequently, the artfulness--especially in descriptions of particular places, persons, and moments--of a fine writer. In nine hefty, engrossing chapters, he takes up as many large topics--historic Indian-white relations, modern Indian identity, the revival of tribal authority, Indians and environmentalism, conflicts between reinvigorated Indian property rights and archaeological research, new Indian claims to lands said to be sacred, Indian alcoholism, the reservation-based system of Indian colleges, and the promise and perils of growing economic and political cooperation with the world beyond the reservation. For each topic, Bordewich tells both success and horror stories, brings forward credible Indian voices on both or several sides of the issues, and shatters myths about Indians that range from the noble savage to the chronic drunk. Most important, he presents Indians as every bit as complex as any other set of human beings, their issues as every bit as consequential as those of any other set of U.S. citizens. Ray Olson

Customer Reviews

Intelligent, nuanced, and well-researched
Bordewich's study of contemporary Indian politics stands out from the usual polemics, presenting humanity instead of stereotypes. More importantly, it focuses on the present and future of native Americans, not just the past, and does justice to the complexity and diversity of American Indian tribes. Borderwich's book was obviously a labor of love. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the most important issues and questions facing Indians and non-Indian Americans alike.

...as if the Indians were destined to vanish...
The more I learn, the more my skin crawls when I hear references to the "vanishing Indian." If anything, it is even more evidence that our mainstream media is telling us what they want us to believe. Oh, it was a valiant effort made in the creation of "the land of the free and the home of the Brave," but it was not successful. Attempted genocides are rarely, if ever, completely successful. For that, we can be grateful...but just barely.

From the book:
"We, the Indigenous Peoples of this red quarter of Mother Earth, [have survived] 500 years of genocide, ethnocide, ecocide, racism, oppression, colonization and christianization. These excesses of western civilization resulted from contempt for Mother Earth and all our relations; contempt for women, elders, children and Native Peoples; and contempt for a future beyond the present human generation." (Taos, New Mexico, 1992)

Native Americans kept this country and the living forms within it pristine for thousands of years before it was "discovered" and "civilized." In 200 years it has been desecrated, vandalized, poisoned almost beyond repair, in the guise of "Manifest Destiny."

It's incredible to even consider "Patriotism" without considering the roots of its "success." One Nation, "Under God":

"In New England, zealots such as Cotton Mather encouraged the Puritans to regard the Indian as a principal actor in the cosmic drama that governed even the smallest details of life, a 'spetial instrument of God' to punish errant souls in the eternal struggle between good and evil. In such a climate, killing Indians became not merely warfare but the cleansing of sin itself.' ... The degree of violence that was woven into the texture of early frontier life fairly boggles the mind of our, in some ways, far more delicate age. In the 1650s, Dutch colonists brought back eighty decapitated Indian heads from a massacre and used them as kickballs in the streets of New Amsterdam."

"It was widely assumed by Americans that Indians were destined to vanish before the onrush of civilization, a view of things that conveniently allowed cynicism to blend with sentimentality...It was as if the Indians' disappearance were the result of some force completely beyond the human power to stay, like a tidal wave or a change of seasons."

The stories are horrendous, and should be required reading for anyone who claims to be a Patriot. This is not to say that Patriotism, in itself, is wrong. Not at all. Just that it should be an informed Patriotism, one that accepts responsibility for its history with an investment in a better and healthier future.

"Between 1850 and 1859, the federal government reimbursed the State of California $924,259 for what was basically freelance murder. ...In April of 1852, miners at Orleans Bar, 'after meeting to discuss the Indian problem, voted to kill on site all Indians having guns,' a local newspaper reported without comment. The next month, near Weaverville, 153 Wintuns were slaughtered in reprisal for killing five cows that belonged to a white man. In 1853, at Yontoket, several hundred Tolowas were murdered in the midst of their harvest dance. A survivor described it, 'The whitemen built a huge fire and threw in our sacred ceremonial dresses, the regalia, and our feathers, and the flames grew higher. Then they threw in the babies, many of them were still alive.' ...Until the 1880s, California courts barred any kind of testimony from 'Indians, or persons having one-fourth or more Indian blood in an action in which a white person was a party.'"

"Professional slave hunters raided Indian villages with impunity, seizing women and children for sale to miners and to brothels in the gold rush towns. In the mid-1850s, a pubescent girl sold for about $300 and smaller children for as little as $50."

Yes, the roots of child sexual slavery go deep into our history.

But the book is more than horror stories and balanced history. There is a future here, and a challenge to the belief that the "savage Indian" has been wiped from the face of the earth. Historical guilt has its limitations, and that is not the purpose of the book. The history of Indian law under federal policy and Indian education opened my eyes to an expansion of Indian culture that I found heartening and exciting. "More consistently than any other in the nation's history, Indian policy has embodied the nation's unending struggle to apply moral standards to the conduct of public policy."

America is not the only nation to attempt to wipe out indigenous tribes, and that is another course of study. The difference, in America, as the book points out, is that America continues to struggle with that history -- and that is something to get Patriotic about. It is a record that, though flawed, is unequaled by any other nation in its dealings with aboriginal peoples.

The book raised a question about tribal sovereignty that was new to me, and that I continue to struggle with long after having read the book. Does it move them forward, or hold them back? Would mainstreaming the American Indian be empowering? Or would it take from them what remaining culture they have left? That is the ultimate question of "celebrating diversity" vs. the "melting pot" theory of America. It is not limited to Indians. And it is a concept we must struggle with, perhaps to the point of redefining what it means to be "mainstream" in America.

Another concept that made me think was the lack of "civil rights" legislation under reservation law: free press, free speech, and separation of powers. If Federal Law is "hands off" reservation land, where to Indians find justice if their governments are corrupt? For that matter, where do we? Perhaps the question is not, who should have the power, but how do we as a nation challenge corruption?

"What are the limits of federal powers? How can tribalism be squared with the legal and moral dictates of equal protection under the law? What is the role of the states in Indian Country and of the tribes in constitutional democracy? What is the civil juristiction of tribal courts? How can the United States support tribal regimes that reject fundamental aspects of American democracy? What is the basis for asserting that reservation Indians shall have representation in state government but without taxation? On the other hand, what is the basis for asserting that non-Indian residents of Indian Country shall not be represented in tribal government yet be subject to tribal law, courts, and taxation? How can we, as Americans, tolerate double standards?"

Good questions, all of them. And Bordwich doesn't answer them. But he certainly gives us plenty with which to mull them over and discuss them. The important thing is that we not ignore them. The Indians aren't. And we are all in this together.

Killing The White Man's Indian, A Considered Opinion
As a Caucasian who lived on two South Dakota Indian Reservations (Rosebud and Cheyenne) as a child, and whose father was an Indian Agent, I approached this book with some trepidation. However, Fergus Bordewich has crafted one of the most studious, readable and important books ever written on this subject. His research is exhaustive, yet related in a way which is entertaining and informative at the same time. There is grist for thought for anyone who has ever had an opinion on how the "Indian Problem" ought to be solved. This will be painful at times to proponents on all sides, as Bordewich's carefully balanced research points outs mistakes and avarice, both willful and accidental, by many. His conclusions will not be universally accepted, as many of his proposals are sure to be viewed with suspicion by one side or the other. Particularly noteworthy are his thoughts on "sovereignty." He points out that the Native American's general view of sovereignty does not match the definition, and fails to recognize that true sovereignty means total independence from the existing US government. This book is recommended for any student who is doing serious research about any aspect of the Native American in contemporary America. This book also is just plain good reading for anyone with an interest in how Native Americans have reached their current position in the American society.