Native American Biographies

In this short story, about a 30-40 minute read, you will meet a spunky woman whose determination led her to do amazing things, in spite of enormous challenges! Katherine Beard, 1908-1998, is not a well known missionary outside of Northern Arizona. I personally knew Miss Beard, and like me, you will be inspired and challenged as you get to know her through this story.

"A very enjoyable biography of a woman on the cusp of change in the North. Recommended." Choice “Beautifully written biography…much to learn, enjoy, and recommend in this book.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly “A riveting story told by a brilliant writer.” Pacific Historical Review The never-before-told story of Kate Carmack, whose resilience and survival made gold rush historyHeadlines shouted the discovery of a century—Gold! Gold! Gold! With pluck and grit, Tagish Indian Kate Carmack was at the center of it all. Raised in the ways of her people, Kate married a white man who took ...

Who was Nede Wade Christie? Was he a violent criminal guilty of murdering a federal officer? Or a Cherokee statesman who suffered a martyr’s death for a crime he did not commit? For more than a century, journalists, pulp fiction authors, and even serious historians have produced largely fictitious accounts of “Ned” Christie’s life. Now, in a tour de force of investigative scholarship, Devon A. Mihesuah offers a far more accurate depiction of Christie and the times in which he lived.

Part memoir and part manifesto, Unreconciled is a stirring call to arms to put truth over the flawed concept of reconciliation, and to build a new, respectful relationship between the nation of Canada and Indigenous peoples.

In 1984, at the age of 24, Clarence Louie was elected Chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band in the Okanagan Valley. Nineteen elections later, Chief Louie has led his community for nearly four decades. The story of how the Osoyoos Indian Band - “The Miracle in the Desert” - transformed from a Rez that once struggled with poverty into an economically independent people is well-known. Guided by his years growing up on the Rez, Chief Louie believes that economic and business independence are key to self-sufficiency, reconciliation, and justice for First Nations people.

Wovoka (1867-1932), the Ghost Dance Prophet, was a member of the Walker River band of Paiutes in Western Nevada. The Walker River Reservation was established in 1859, and was Wokova’s home off and on for years. Wovoka was also known as Jack Wilson, a name he acquired while he was, for some years, employed on the David Wilson family ranch in the Mason Valley.

When North and South met in 1865 at Appomattox Court House to end the Civil War, the official terms of surrender weren’t written in the hand of Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, or any white soldier. Instead, this momentous event was recorded by General Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca (Iroquois) tribe. At that time, Parker was not only the highest-ranking Native American in the Union Army but also the Grand Sachem, or chief representative, of the Haudenosaunee—the powerful Iroquois Confederacy.

Sacagawea was the only girl, and the only Native American, to join Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, which explored the United States from the Mississippi River all the way to the Pacific Ocean in the early 1800s. As a translator, she helped the team communicate with members of the Shoshone tribe across the continent, carrying her child on her back the whole way. By the time the expedition arrived at the west coast, Sacagawea had proved that she truly was a trailblazer.

1921, Oklahoma. Dépossédés de leurs terres, les Indiens Osages ont été parqués dans une réserve aride. Mais sous leurs pieds coule un océan de pétrole. De quoi rameuter, en quelques mois, les vautours blancs assoiffés d'or noir. Bientôt, les membres les plus riches de la tribu disparaissent, l'un après l'autre. Balle dans la tête, empoisonnement, incendie...

Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment.

En los años veinte, la comunidad india de los Osage en Oklahoma era la población de mayor renta per cápita del mundo. El petróleo que yacía bajo sus propiedades les convirtió en millonarios: construyeron mansiones, tenían chóferes privados y mandaban a sus hijos a estudiar a Europa. Pero un espiral de violencia asoló esta comunidad indígena cuando sus miembros empezaron a morir y a desaparecer en extrañas circunstancias. La familia de una mujer Osage, Mollie Burkhart, se convirtió en un objetivo principal.

Born in 1925, Maria Tallchief spent part of her childhood on an Osage reservation in Oklahoma. With the support of her family and world-renowned choreographer George Balanchine, she rose to the top of her art form to become America's first prima ballerina.

Growing up on a First Nation reserve, young Ted Nolan built his own backyard hockey rink and wore skates many sizes too big. But poverty wasn’t his biggest challenge. Playing the game meant spending his life in two worlds: one in which he was loved and accepted and one where he was often told he didn’t belong. Ted proved he had what it took, joining the Detroit Red Wings in 1978. But when his on-ice career ended, he discovered his true passion wasn’t playing; it was coaching.

Of the three surgeons who accompanied Custer's Seventh Cavalry on June 25, 1876, only the youngest, 28-year-old Henry Porter, survived that day's ordeal, riding through a gauntlet of Indian attackers and up the steep bluffs to Major Marcus Reno's hilltop position. But the story of Dr. Porter's wartime exploits goes far beyond the battle itself.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the men who helped to bring the United States into being, and he shepherded the country through some of the most dynamic political years in its history. It is possible that without his brilliance, the fledgling democracy, the first in the world since the end of Ancient Greece, may not have survived its first few trials by fire.

The name "Geronimo" came to Corine Sombrun insistently in a trance during her apprenticeship to a Mongolian shaman. That message and the need to understand its meaning brought her to the home of the legendary Apache leader's great-grandson, Harlyn Geronimo, himself a medicine man on the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico.

At the start of the 1840s, the Oregon Country had no political boundaries or effective government. The first to begin showing up in large numbers were missionaries...Narcissa Prentiss Whitman became the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains...A teacher and missionary, she accomplished the journey with her like-minded husband, Dr. Marcus Whitman. Their history-making tenure in the northwestern wilderness caused them to become one of the most well-known couples of the 19th century, and their story was soon known to the entire nation.

George Armstrong Custer, one of the most familiar figures of 19th-century American history, is known almost exclusively as a soldier, his brilliant military career culminating in catastrophe at Little Bighorn. But Custer, author James E. Mueller suggests, had the soul of an artist, not of a soldier. Ambitious Honor elaborates this radically new perspective, arguing that an artistic passion for creativity and recognition drove Custer to success and, ultimately, to the failure that has overshadowed his notable achievements.

Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perce tribe, lived from 1840 to 1904. He became a legend through his heroic efforts to keep his people in their homeland in Oregon's Wallowa Valley. For years he tried to accommodate encroaching white men on his tribal lands, but finally gave up and attempted, in the fall of 1877, to lead his people safely to Canada.

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The highway is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and testament to their families and communities' unwavering determination to find it.