Good book on history of American Indians during 1500-1900s?

Books, comics, TV, music
1

I’m looking for a couple of good books on the history of the American Indians during the European take-over of the American continent. My first perusal made me realize that the topic is so emotive that it is hard to find an even-handed, well documented book that isn’t “agenda oriented.”

Does anyone have recommendations for some books on this topic that are historically sound and more focused on facts and documented history than making a case for some agenda? (Not saying those books aren’t valid, that’s just not what I’m looking for right now.)

2

Good luck. Modern historical writing tends to be pretty polarized.

3

You can try this one. Venables has a pretty solid rep as a serious scholar of Native American history.

Troy

4

There’s a book called “Lies My Teacher Told Me” that deals extensively with this period in history. The book focuses on the inaccuracies taught in modern textbooks, but you’ll find a lot of good value just using it for historical information.

5

“A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn (I think) covers the immediate post-Columbian period pretty well, as I recall.

6

I read Zinn - that guy has far too much of an anti-American, anti-everything agenda for me to trust him very much.

I looked up Venables; he has a book called American Indian History: 5 Centuries of Conflict and Alliance. But there’s no reviews of any kind, nor even a synopsis.

7

I will dig up my recomended reading list that a friend gave me a few years back when he was working on his thesis about the Iroquois Confederacy. There was an interesting book about how the founding fathers “borrowed” heavily from the Iroquois when writing up the Articles of Confederation.

8

Well that was a pretty dumb idea considering that the attempt was a failure.

Yay constitution!

9

I read Zinn - that guy has far too much of an anti-American, anti-everything agenda for me to trust him very much.

I looked up Venables; he has a book called American Indian History: 5 Centuries of Conflict and Alliance. But there’s no reviews of any kind, nor even a synopsis.[/quote]

I had a link to that book in my first post, but it got swallowed or something…

Anyway, I’m not too familiar with that book, since it is new, but I am familiar with Venables’ name from other scholarly writing stuff. Pretty safe bet, but it never hurts to get a proper review of course.

Troy

10

I read Zinn - that guy has far too much of an anti-American, anti-everything agenda for me to trust him very much.

I looked up Venables; he has a book called American Indian History: 5 Centuries of Conflict and Alliance. But there’s no reviews of any kind, nor even a synopsis.[/quote]

I had a link to that book in my first post, but it got swallowed or something…

Anyway, I’m not too familiar with that book, since it is new, but I am familiar with Venables’ name from other scholarly writing stuff. Pretty safe bet, but it never hurts to get a proper review of course.

Troy[/quote]

I went ahead and ordered it from Amazon. I’m a book fanatic, so even if it isn’t all that great, it’s another addition to the library. ;)

11

Let me know how you find it Jeff. Our library could use a book on Native American history, too.

Nothing quite like a guinea pig…

Troy

12

The only book I know that’s acutally even handed only concerns a very limited amount of time concerning the subject - it’s by Stephen Ambrose and it’s called Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors. Anyway, it’s a fairly even handed account of those two people, but I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for.

That book is great though, just like the rest of Ambrose’s stuff.

13

I read this one a year or two ago. I was rather shocked to find out that public schools no longer teach about the East Coast Indians being devastated by diseases contracted from the first colonists and explorers in the late 16th/early 17th Century, which made it easy for the New England colonists of the 1620s+ to move in and take over the farms created by the locals, but abandoned when the epidemics ravaged the Indians. It was one reason contention developed between the two communities; the Indians wanted their property back after they recovered from the epidemics.

This point was standard fare in my grade school and junior high school text books in the 1960s. When did it go out of vogue?

14

Probably when crackpots took over the Texas school board.

15

Dee Brown - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Jerry Mander - In the Absence of Sacred

Vine Deloria writes some decent and humorous books as well, Red Earth, White Lies being a good start. Although they tend to deal with more recent events in Native American history.

16

http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/grd/resguides/columbus/index.html

This one is interesting:

Bartolome de las Casas, “Historia de las Indias”. Las Casas went with Columbus on his second voyage. He was a good guy. He saw all the indians suffering/dying from disease and forced labor. Later he becomes a priest which was pretty interesting since he gained some immunity from retribution, could go nearly anywhere, and say what he wanted.

Among some of his solutions were placing Indians into Church control, and separated from contact with laymen. He tried to import european farmers into the islands. When that fialed, he supported the importation of african labor into the “indies”, about 500-600 each island.

I’d also recommend looking into the conquest of the Aztecs. It is fascinating. In my opinion it is not exactly accurate to depict the Spanish conquerors as barbarians taking down a sophisticated, developed civilization (the aztecs).

The Aztecs at that point were at the height of their own conquests.
The Spanish were also a warrior race, expanding forth. The same year that Columbus set forth (1492) is also the year the Spanish took back GRANADA from the moors. The moors owned about half of spain for ~500 years.

Another interesting fact:

The military victory of Cortez was not exactly because of the superiority of European arms/armor. Guns of that period being slow to reload, prone to failure in the humidity, etc etc. Arrows are pretty deadly.

There were other important factors to their victory. First, the Aztecs (or Mexica as they called themselves) had many enemies. These enemies were nice enough to send about 100,000 soldiers (I really don’t remember, but it was a huge number.) There was also a bit of a civil war as Montezuma’s brother realized the Spanish were not Gods, but just greedy bastages looking for gold.

History of the Conquest of Mexico:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PreConq.html

17

Interesting stuff - thanks for the references.

18

Ah yes. Prescott’s History. A great read. As are his histories of the conquest of Peru by Pizzaro and the reign of Isabella. Prescott’s blindness makes his scholarship all the more impressive as a labor of love.

The books are over a hundred and forty years old, though, and we understand a lot more about the indigenous cultures now than Prescott could have. He is very even-handed in his treatment of the Conquest, but sometimes the tales of the Spaniards venturing off into the jungle come off like Boy’s Own Adventure tales - brave and stoic warriors venture into the unknown, etc.

But no one has ever done as good a job at making the personalities of the period come alive. The books are landmarks in American historical scholarship and, like all great histories, the footnotes are often as interesting as the text itself.

Troy

19

I’d also recommend looking into the conquest of the Aztecs. It is fascinating. In my opinion it is not exactly accurate to depict the Spanish conquerors as barbarians taking down a sophisticated, developed civilization (the aztecs).

Harumph. The Aztecs were just as much barbarians as the Spanish. They were Evil, with a capital E. (As clearly demonstrated by my capitalization of the word.) I just finished an excellent, non-polarized book by Hugh Thomas called CONQUEST: CORTES, MONTEZUMA, AND THE FALL OF OLD MEXICO. The bastard Aztecs were just as superstitious, oppressive, arrogant, and… well… evil as the Spanish turned out to be. Plus, the details about their extensive human sacrifices are pretty shocking. They literally killed thousands of people during certain festivals. Still, the book makes for an excellent read, and there’s nothing like salacious, gratuitious details about violence to keep you turning the pages. On the other hand, there’s also good analyses of personalities and social/economic factors that do a good job of explaining why what happened did happen.

The military victory of Cortez was not exactly because of the superiority of European arms/armor. Guns of that period being slow to reload, prone to failure in the humidity, etc etc. Arrows are pretty deadly.

There were other important factors to their victory. First, the Aztecs (or Mexica as they called themselves) had many enemies. These enemies were nice enough to send about 100,000 soldiers (I really don’t remember, but it was a huge number.) There was also a bit of a civil war as Montezuma’s brother realized the Spanish were not Gods, but just greedy bastages looking for gold.

Hmm… Hugh Thomas’ book makes it sound that one of thre greatest causes of Spanish victory was the Aztecs’ ridiculous tactics. They fought to gain honour, capture people for sacrifice, etc. The Spaniards (and most of the Spaniards Native American allies, whom the Spaniards trained) fought to kill.

In addition, I think the weapon difference was more important than what you’re making it out to be. The Aztecs had those stupid obsidean swords, which are good for like one or two strikes before they shatter on metal armour, which many of the Spaniards were wearing. However, you’re right; arrows are pretty deadly, and the gunpowder weapons weren’t all that hot. However, the Spaniards themselves had more crossbowmen than arquebusiers, and the crossbows were much more effective than anything the Natives had. Plus… the Spaniards had cannon! Woo hoo!