First Peoples was Bedford/St. Martin’s first “docutext” – a textbook that features groups of primary source documents at the end of each chapter, essentially providing a reader in addition to the narrative textbook. Expertly authored by Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples has been praised for its inclusion of Native American sources and Calloway’s concerted effort to weave Native perspectives throughout the narrative. First Peoples’ distinctive approach continues to make it the bestselling and most highly acclaimed text for the American Indian history survey.

In 1906 when the Creek Indian Chitto Harjo was protesting the United States government's liquidation of his tribe's lands, he began his argument with an account of Indian history from the time of Columbus, "for, of course, a thing has to have a root before it can grow." Yet even today most intelligent non-Indian Americans have little knowledge of Indian history and affairs those lessons have not taken root. This book is an in-depth historical survey of the Indians of the United States, including the Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska, which isolates and analyzes the problems which have beset these people since their first contacts with Europeans. Only in the light of this knowledge, the author points out, can an intelligent Indian policy be formulated. In the book are described the first meetings of Indians with explorers, the dispossession of the Indians by colonial expansion, their involvement in imperial rivalries, their beginning relations with the new American republic, and the ensuing century of war and encroachment. The most recent aspects of government Indian policy are also detailed the good and bad administrative practices and measures to which the Indians have been subjected and their present situation. Miss Debo's style is objective, and throughout the book the distinct social environment of the Indians is emphasized—an environment that is foreign to the experience of most white men. Through ignorance of that culture and life style the results of non-Indian policy toward Indians have been centuries of blundering and tragedy. In response to Indian history, an enlightened policy must be formulated: protection of Indian land, vocational and educational training, voluntary relocation, encouragement of tribal organization, recognition of Indians' social groupings, and reliance on Indians' abilities to direct their own lives. The result of this new policy would be a chance for Indians to live now, whether on their own land or as adjusted members of white society. Indian history is usually highly specialized and is never recorded in books of general history. This book unifies the many specialized volumes which have been written about their history and culture. It has been written not only for persons who work with Indians or for students of Indian culture, but for all Americans of good will.

Landmark court cases in the history of formal U.S. relations with Indian tribes are Corn Tassel, Standing Bear, Crow Dog, and Lone Wolf. Each exemplifies a problem or a process as the United States defined and codified its politics toward Indians. The importance of the Lone Wolf case of 1903 resides in its enunciation of the "plenary power" doctrine?that the United States could unilaterally act in violation of its own treaties and that Congress could dispose of land recognized by treaty as belonging to individual tribes. In 1892 the Kiowas and related Comanche and Plains Apache groups were pressured into agreeing to divide their land into allotments under the terms of the Dawes Act of 1887. Lone Wolf, a Kiowa band leader, sued to halt the land division, citing the treaties signed with the United States immediately after the Civil War. In 1902 the case reached the Supreme Court, which found that Congress could overturn the treaties through the doctrine of plenary power. As he recounts the Lone Wolf case, Clark reaches beyond the legal decision to describe the Kiowa tribe itself and its struggles to cope with Euro-American pressure on its society, attitudes, culture, economic system, and land base. The story of the case therefore also becomes the history of the tribe in the late nineteenth century. The Lone Wolf case also necessarily becomes a study of the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 in operation; under the terms of the Dawes Act and successor legislation, almost two-thirds of Indian lands passed out of their hands within a generation. Understanding how this happened in the case of the Kiowa permits a nuanced view of the well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous allotment effort.