Early Native American Writers
Websites
- Samson Occom
from Native American Writers - George Copwayfrom Native American Writers
- S. Alice Callahan, Native American Teacher and Authorfrom Encyclopedia Britanica
- Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)
from The Canadian Encyclopedia
N. Scott Momaday
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
House Made of Dawn by
The magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a stranger in his native land "Both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature. . . . A book everyone should read for the joy and emotion of the language it contains." - The Paris Review A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his father's, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world--modern, industrial America--pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, trying to claim his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and disgust.
Call Number: PS3563.O47 H6 2010
Databases
- Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Articles and essays on literary criticism, and biographies of authors from many countries.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
Native American Boarding Schools
Streaming Video
- Indian School: Stories of SurvivalProposing to “kill the Indian and save the man,” U.S. Army captain Richard H. Pratt envisioned an educational system that would erase Native American culture and “civilize” the continent’s indigenous people. His chosen method? Removing children from Pennsylvania’s tribal communities and confining them in barracks-style schools—initially the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which Pratt founded in 1879. In myopic terms it was a remarkably effective strategy, and Carlisle became a cruel model for institutions all over the U.S. and Canada, including Michigan’s Mount Pleasant Indian School. Subjected to emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse, Mount Pleasant students were inevitably alienated from their families, native languages, and tribal religions. This film combines archival materials with present-day interviews to make clear just how inhumane the system was. Survivors from Tlingit, Chippewa, Choctaw, and Lakota communities describe in raw, unflinching terms the impact on First Nations across North America. Contains occasional profanity. (41 minutes)
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Native American Boarding Schools by
A broadly based historical survey, this book examines Native American boarding schools in the United States from Puritan times to the present day. Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans are estimated to have attended Native American boarding schools during the course of over a century. Today, many of the off-reservation Native American boarding schools have closed, and those that remain are in danger of losing critical federal funding. Ironically, some Native Americans want to preserve them. This book provides a much-needed historical survey of Native American boarding schools that examines all of these educational institutions across the United States and presents a balanced view of many personal boarding school experiences--both positive and negative. Author Mary A. Stout, an expert in American Indian subjects, places Native American boarding schools in context with other American historical and educational movements, discussing not only individual facilities but also the specific outcomes of this educational paradigm. * Draws upon actual student letters and documents relating to boarding school experiences * Presents biographical profiles of such key figures as Col. Richard Pratt, founder of Carlisle Indian School; and Jim Thorpe, American athlete and Carlisle graduate * Provides a chronology of Native American boarding schools in the United States from the 1600s to the present * Supplies an annotated bibliography of key research resources on Native American boarding schools * Includes a glossary defining hundreds of terms relating to Indian culture and history
Call Number: E97.5 .S76 2012
To Remain an Indian by
What might we learn from Native American experiences with schools to help us forge a new vision of the democratic ideal--one that respects, protects, and promotes diversity and human rights? In this fascinating portrait of American Indian education over the past century, the authors critically evaluate U.S. education policies and practices, from early 20th-century federal incarnations of colonial education through the contemporary standards movement. In the process, they refute the notion of "dangerous cultural difference" and point to the promise of diversity as a source of national strength. Featuring the voices and experiences of Native individuals that official history has silenced and pushed aside, this book: Proposes the theoretical framework of the "safety zone" to explain shifts in federal educational policies and practices over the past century. Offers lessons learned from Indigenous America's fight to protect and assert educational self-determination. Rebuts stereotypes of American Indians as one-dimensional learners. Argues that the maintenance of Indigenous languages is a fundamental human right. Examines the standards movement as the most recent attempt to control the "dangerous difference" allegedly posed by students of color, poor and working-class students, and English language learners in U.S. schools.
Call Number: E97 .L66 2006
James Fenimore Cooper
Online From CCBC Libraries
The Last of the Mohicans by
The Last of the Mohicans is the second book in Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy, and remains his best-known work. It is a historical novel set in the French and Indian war in New York, and centers around the massacre of surrendered Anglo-American troops. The two daughters of the British commander are kidnapped, but rescued by the last two Mohicans. The title comes from a quote by Tamanend: I have lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the...
Publication Date: 2009
Contemporary Native American Authors
Online from CCBC Libraries
Shrouds of White Earth by
--Pointed, absorbing novel about an indigenous artist's long journey of creativity and coming-of-awareness from White Earth Reservation to Paris
Publication Date: 2010
Bobbi Lee by Publication Date: 1990
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Fools Crow by
The 25th-anniversary edition of "a novel that in the sweep and inevitability of its events...is a major contribution to Native American literature." (Wallace Stegner) In the Two Medicine Territory of Montana, the Lone Eaters, a small band of Blackfeet Indians, are living their immemorial life. The men hunt and mount the occasional horse-taking raid or war party against the enemy Crow. The women tan the hides, sew the beadwork, and raise the children. But the year is 1870, and the whites are moving into their land. Fools Crow, a young warrior and medicine man, has seen the future and knows that the newcomers will punish resistance with swift retribution. First published to broad acclaim in 1986, Fools Crow is James Welch's stunningly evocative portrait of his people's bygone way of life. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Call Number: PS3573.E44 F66 2011
The Round House by
The Round House won the National Book Award for fiction. One of the most revered novelists of our time--a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life--Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family. Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich's The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction--at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.
Call Number: PS3555.R42 R68 2012
From Sand Creek by
Poems portray the persecution of American Indians and analyze the author's sense of identity as an Indian.
Call Number: PS3565 .R77 F7 1981
Louis Owens
Online Book Preview
- I Hear the Train: Reflections, Inventions, Refractions
Preview from Google Books
Articles
- Louis Owens Obituary
from New York Times
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
The Native American Renaissance by
The outpouring of Native American literature that followed the publication of N. Scott Momaday?s Pulitzer Prize?winning House Made of Dawn in 1968 continues unabated. Fiction and poetry, autobiography and discursive writing from such writers as James Welch, Gerald Vizenor, and Leslie Marmon Silko constitute what critic Kenneth Lincoln in 1983 termed the Native American Renaissance. This collection of essays takes the measure of that efflorescence. The contributors scrutinize writers from Momaday to Sherman Alexie, analyzing works by Native women, First Nations Canadian writers, postmodernists, and such theorists as Robert Warrior, Jace Weaver, and Craig Womack. Weaver?s own examination of the development of Native literary criticism since 1968 focuses on Native American literary nationalism. Alan R. Velie turns to the achievement of Momaday to examine the ways Native novelists have influenced one another. Post-renaissance and postmodern writers are discussed in company with newer writers such as Gordon Henry, Jr., and D. L. Birchfield. Critical essays discuss the poetry of Simon Ortiz, Kimberly Blaeser, Diane Glancy, Luci Tapahonso, and Ray A. Young Bear, as well as the life writings of Janet Campbell Hale, Carter Revard, and Jim Barnes. An essay on Native drama examines the work of Hanay Geiogamah, the Native American Theater Ensemble, and Spider Woman Theatre. In the volume?s concluding essay, Kenneth Lincoln reflects on the history of the Native American Renaissance up to and beyond his seminal work, and discusses Native literature?s legacy and future. The essays collected here underscore the vitality of Native American literature and the need for debate on theory and ideology.
Call Number: PS153.I52 N378 2013
