Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America

The Epic Contest for North America

by Pekka Hämäläinen

Paperback, 571 pages

English language

Published Sept. 12, 2023 by Liveright.

ISBN:: 978-1-324-09406-7
ASIN:: 1324094060

(6 reviews)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER New York Times Book Review • 100 Notable Books of 2022 Best Books of 2022 ― New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence

“I can only wish that, when I was that lonely college junior and was finishing Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee , I’d had Hämäläinen’s book at hand.” ―David Treuer, The New Yorker “[T]he single best book I have ever read on Native American history.” ―Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times Book Review

NATIONAL BESTSELLER New York Times Book Review • 100 Notable Books of 2022 Best Books of 2022 ― New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence

A prize-winning scholar rewrites 400 years of American history from Indigenous perspectives, overturning the dominant origin story of the United States. There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes like this: Columbus “discovers” a strange continent and brings back tales of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing “New World” as possible. Though Indigenous peoples fight back, they cannot stop the onslaught. White imperialists are destined to rule the continent, and history is an irreversible march toward Indigenous destruction. Yet as with other long-accepted origin stories, this one, too, turns out to be based in myth and distortion. In Indigenous Continent , acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen presents a sweeping counternarrative that shatters the most basic assumptions about American history. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the Revolution, and other well-trodden episodes on the conventional timeline, he depicts a sovereign world of Native nations whose members, far from helpless victims of colonial violence, dominated the continent for centuries after the first European arrivals. From the Iroquois in the Northeast to the Comanches on the Plains, and from the Pueblos in the Southwest to the Cherokees in the Southeast, Native nations frequently decimated white newcomers in battle. Even as the white population exploded and colonists’ land greed grew more extravagant, Indigenous peoples flourished due to sophisticated diplomacy and leadership structures. By 1776, various colonial powers claimed nearly all of the continent, but Indigenous peoples still controlled it―as Hämäläinen points out, the maps in modern textbooks that paint much of North America in neat, color-coded blocks confuse outlandish imperial boasts for actual holdings. In fact, Native power peaked in the late nineteenth century, with the Lakota victory in 1876 at Little Big Horn, which was not an American blunder, but an all-too-expected outcome. Hämäläinen ultimately contends that the very notion of “colonial America” is misleading, and that we should speak instead of an “Indigenous America” that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial. The evidence of Indigenous defiance is apparent today in the hundreds of Native nations that still dot the United States and Canada. Necessary reading for anyone who cares about America’s past, present, and future, Indigenous Continent restores Native peoples to their rightful place at the very fulcrum of American history. 42 black-and-white images and 10 maps

3 editions

bwaber reviewed Indigenous Continent by Pekka Hämäläinen

A Sweeping Account of North America through the late 19th Century from a (somewhat) indigenous view

4 stars

North American history is inextricably intertwined with colonization and genocide, and this book charts and analyzes that history by taking a more indigenous-centric and holistic approach. Starting in prehistory, Hämäläinen reviews the archaeological evidence of North American civilizations and the spread of people, agricultural practices, and technologies. With the arrival of Europeans the method shifts to one that reviews the written historical record, and it's here that my most significant issue with this book lies.

As far as I can tell, no oral history sources are included from indigenous peoples. I get why - it's much harder to collect and contextualize that kind of data - but it leaves much of this book still smacking of Eurocentrism until the 19th century.

Leaving that aside, this book provides an extremely rich, fresh analysis of the arc of North American development through the millennia and recent centuries, effectively putting to bed many …

Leaving that aside, this book provides an extremely rich, fresh analysis of the arc of North American development through the millennia and recent centuries, effectively putting to bed many self serving US and European narratives and highlighting the power and agency of indigenous people even through the heyday of US expansion. Highly recommend.

Geoff reviewed Indigenous Continent by Pekka Hämäläinen

Review of 'Indigenous Continent' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Several years ago I read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. I found it fascinating and eye-opening. But it also made me curious to read about these topics from the perspective of indigenous authors. All that to say: don’t be confused like I was. Indigenous Continent is not written by an indigenous author. It wasn’t until I was halfway through the book that I looked up the author out of curiosity. And then I discovered he is a white Finish man. This is an embarrassing admission. I feel somewhat excused in this mistake because it was shelved under “Indigenous Voices” at the book store in San Francisco where I first found it. Trust but verify I guess.

I don’t say this to disparage the book at all. It was very good. In the introduction, the author talks about language:

I call Native men and …

I call Native men and women involved in war “soldiers,” not “warriors.” The settlements of more sedentary Native nations are “towns,” whereas the more mobile nomadic settlements are “villages.” Rather than “chiefs,” I use either Indigenous terms for leaders or simply “officials” or “officers” because they were Indigenous administrators.

This linguistic approach has a really powerful effect on the way the stories are told, placing the wars between colonial powers and indigenous powers in congruent terms and helping to eliminate the white-supremacist baggage I carry in my own head. Of course this is more than a linguistic trick. Hämäläinen writes about indigenous sovereign nations with respect, and works hard to erase eurocentric framing and assumptions. The overall effect is powerful. Over and over I heard historical accounts I’m sure I’ve heard before (although not in so much detail) but with a totally different feel in the telling.

There’s another thing here that was eye-opening as a european-american, steeped in american hagiography and slowly coming to terms with the rot at the core of my culture. There’s a grade-school interpretation of american history that tells a story of a people at peace. Europe was the continent of unending wars, and Americans separated themselves from that, creating a continent at peace where people can live in freedom. And yet, as Indigenous Continent makes so clear, this country was in a constant state of war. From before its founding until the early 20th century, the United States was actively at war with its sovereign neighbors. This war was often fought by civilians, and involved atrocities and genocides, often carried out by bands of individuals. (And of course also carried out by official government policy.)
How does the American psyche square this with its own self-image? I can’t help but think developing a deep subconscious sense of white supremacy is essential to this. It also probably has bearing on gun culture, and a dozen other cultural illnesses that infect us to this day.

Of course I’m not describing anything new here. But the steady drumbeat of violence described in Indigenous Continent, put into terminology that is not so tainted by white supremacy, made all this very bare.

There’s so much more to this book. It’s fundamental premise is that indigenous peoples bested European powers for centuries and this is erased by modern telling. And it brings a tremendous amount of detail to this topic.

I’m still on the lookout for an academic history of the continent from an indigenous author, but meanwhile I’m glad I read this one.