On the occasion of the 80th birthday of Rodolfo Stavenhagen, a distinguished Mexican sociologist and professor emeritus of El Colegio de Mexico, Úrsula Oswald Spring (UNAM/CRIM, Mexico) introduces him as a Pioneer on Indigenous Rights due to his research on human rights issues, especially when he served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. First, in a retrospective Stavenhagen reviews his scientific and political work for the rights of indigenous peoples. Seven of his classic texts address Seven Fallacies about Latin America (1965); Decolonializing Applied Social Sciences (1971); Ethnodevelopment: A Neglected Dimension in Development Thinking (1986); Human Rights and Wrongs: A Place for Anthropologists? (1998); Indigenous Peoples and the State in Latin America: An Ongoing Debate (2000); Building Intercultural Citizenship through Education: A Human Rights Approach (2006); and Making the Declaration Work (2006). This volume discusses the emergence of indigenous peoples as new social and political actors at the national level in numerous countries, as well as on the international scene. This book introduces a trilogy of Briefs on Rodolfo Stavenhagen published in the same series Pioneers in Science and Practice.

In 2016, Canada’s newly elected federal government publically committed to reconciling the social and material deprivation of Indigenous communities across the country. Does this outward shift in the Canadian state’s approach to longstanding injustices facing Indigenous peoples reflect a “transformation with teeth,” or is it merely a reconstructed attempt at colonial Indigenous-settler relations? Prairie Rising provides a series of critical reflections about the changing face of settler colonialism in Canada through an ethnographic investigation of Indigenous-state relations in the city of Saskatoon. Jaskiran Dhillon uncovers how various groups including state agents, youth workers, and community organizations utilize participatory politics in order to intervene in the lives of Indigenous youth living under conditions of colonial occupation and marginality. In doing so, this accessibly written book sheds light on the changing forms of settler governance and the interlocking systems of education, child welfare, and criminal justice that sustain it. Dhillon’s nuanced and fine-grained analysis exposes how the push for inclusionary governance ultimately reinstates colonial settler authority and raises startling questions about the federal

"As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler's son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent figure in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as trees of a size never imagined, floods, fires, wolves, bears, even an earthquake, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough's subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments."--Dust jacket.

Larry Spotted Crow Mann's groundbreaking novel, The Mourning Road to Thanksgiving is the 2015 WordCraft Circle of Honors Winner: Best Young Adult Novel of the Year! This unforgettable story continues to inspire, educate and challenge the notion of a holiday engrained in American history. This riveting tale challenges the narrative and conceptions we have of American history and exposes the untold stories and lingering scars of our past. As equally important, this is a story for our generation. It takes us bravely forward to an understanding and awareness of each other like never before. From laughter to tears, this novel will inspire you and reveal the endless possibilities when we open our hearts. Haunted by his childhood, and furious about the treatment of his people since the landing of Mayflower; a 40-year-old Native American man sets off on an unforgettable quest to heal himself and Native people everywhere. He believes he can accomplish both by putting an end to America's beloved Thanksgiving-Forever. A heart wrenching, daring and sometimes humorous journey that goes far beyond a litany of hardship and loss and will reveal the healing spirit within all of humankind. Order your copy today to find out why readers are saying The Mourning Road to Thanksgiving is one of the best books they have ever read!

In this spiritual, moving autobiography, Wilma Mankiller, former Chief of the Cherokee Nation and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, tells of her own history while also honoring and recounting the history of the Cherokees. Mankiller's life unfolds against the backdrop of the dawning of the American Indian civil rights struggle, and her book becomes a quest to reclaim and preserve the great Native American values that form the foundation of our nation. Now featuring a new Afterword to the 2000 paperback reissue, this edition of Mankiller completely updates the author's private and public life after 1994 and explores the recent political struggles of the Cherokee Nation.

For more than a century, American communities erected monuments to western pioneers. Although many of these statues receive little attention today, the images they depict—sturdy white men, saintly mothers, and wholesome pioneer families—enshrine prevailing notions of American exceptionalism, race relations, and gender identity. Pioneer Mother Monuments is the first book to delve into the long and complex history of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering pioneer monuments. In this book, historian Cynthia Culver Prescott combines visual analysis with a close reading of primary-source documents. Examining some two hundred monuments erected in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present, Prescott begins her survey by focusing on the earliest pioneer statues, which celebrated the strong white men who settled—and conquered—the West. By the 1930s, she explains, when gender roles began shifting, new monuments came forth to honor the Pioneer Mother. The angelic woman in a sunbonnet, armed with a rifle or a Bible as she carried civilization forward—an iconic figure—resonated particularly with Mormon audiences. While interest in these traditional monuments began to wane in the postwar period, according to Prescott, a new wave of pioneer monuments emerged in smaller communities during the late twentieth century. Inspired by rural nostalgia, these statues helped promote heritage tourism. In recent years, Americans have engaged in heated debates about Confederate Civil War monuments and their implicit racism. Should these statues be removed or reinterpreted? Far less attention, however, has been paid to pioneer monuments, which, Prescott argues, also enshrine white cultural superiority—as well as gender stereotypes. Only a few western communities have reexamined these values and erected statues with more inclusive imagery. Blending western history, visual culture, and memory studies, Prescott’s pathbreaking analysis is enhanced by a rich selection of color and black-and-white photographs depicting the statues along with detailed maps that chronologically chart the emergence of pioneer monuments.

Montana is a large state with diverse vegetation from Great Plains prairie and deciduous forest in the east to northern coniferous forest and alpine tundra in the west. Discovering the botanical secrets of this spectacular landscape began with indigenous peoples and continued through the 20th Century with early explorers, geographers and entrepreneurs followed by teachers, scientists and curious and dedicated lay persons. Montana's multitude of rugged mountains and wide open spaces means that botanical discoveries which started with the Lewis and Clark Expedition continue to this day. Montana's Pioneer Botanists brings together more than thirty biographies of these diverse people and traces the growth of botanical knowledge in this wild and beautiful state. Includes over 200 photos and illustrations and seventeen different authors, all botanists themselves.