Indians In Color

Confounding the Color Line is an essential, interdisciplinary introduction to the myriad relationships forged for centuries between Indians and Blacks in North America.øSince the days of slavery, the lives and destinies of Indians and Blacks have been entwined-thrown together through circumstance, institutional design, or personal choice. Cultural sharing and intermarriage have resulted in complex identities for some members of Indian and Black communities today. The contributors to this volume examine the origins, history, various manifestations, and long-term consequences of the different connections that have been established between Indians and Blacks. Stimulating examples of a range of relations are offered, including the challenges faced by Cherokee freedmen, the lives of Afro-Indian whalers in New England, and the ways in which Indians and Africans interacted in Spanish colonial New Mexico. Special attention is given to slavery and its continuing legacy, both in the Old South and in Indian Territory. The intricate nature of modern Indian-Black relations is showcased through discussions of the ties between Black athletes and Indian mascots, the complex identities of Indians in southern New England, the problem of Indian identity within the African American community, and the way in which today's Lumbee Indians have creatively engaged with African American church music. At once informative and provocative, Confounding the Color Line sheds valuable light on a pivotal and not well understood relationship between these communities of color, which together and separately have affected, sometimes profoundly, the course of American history.

In Indians in Color, noted cultural critic Norman K. Denzin addresses the acute differences in the treatment of artwork about Native America created by European-trained artists compared to those by Native artists. In his fourth volume exploring race and culture in the New West, Denzin zeroes in on painting movements in Taos, New Mexico over the past century. Part performance text, part art history, part cultural criticism, part autoethnography, he once again demonstrates the power of visual media to reify or resist racial and cultural stereotypes, moving us toward a more nuanced view of contemporary Native American life. In this book, Denzin-contrasts the aggrandizement by collectors and museums of the art created by the early 20th century Taos Society of Artists under railroad sponsorship with that of indigenous Pueblo painters;-shows how these tensions between mainstream and Native art remains today; and-introduces a radical postmodern artistic aesthetic of contemporary Native artists that challenges notions of the “noble savage.”

The Color of the Land brings the histories of Creek Indians, African Americans, and whites in Oklahoma together into one story that explores the way races and nations were made and remade in conflicts over who would own land, who would farm it, and who would rule it. This story disrupts expected narratives of the American past, revealing how identities--race, nation, and class--took new forms in struggles over the creation of different systems of property. Conflicts were unleashed by a series of sweeping changes: the forced "removal" of the Creeks from their homeland to Oklahoma in the 1830s, the transformation of the Creeks' enslaved black population into landed black Creek citizens after the Civil War, the imposition of statehood and private landownership at the turn of the twentieth century, and the entrenchment of a sharecropping economy and white supremacy in the following decades. In struggles over land, wealth, and power, Oklahomans actively defined and redefined what it meant to be Native American, African American, or white. By telling this story, David Chang contributes to the history of racial construction and nationalism as well as to southern, western, and Native American history.

Treuer, an Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist, answers the most commonly asked questions about American Indians, both historical and modern. He gives a frank, funny, and personal tour of what's up with Indians, anyway.

"The current exhibition illustrates the gradual move from traditional design and restrained use of color to eclectic but exuberant design and hgih color during the period from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century."--Page 3.

'Framed by Appomattox in 1865 and the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, packed with individuals' stories, details of battles fought and descriptions of army life, Men of Color to Arms! examines black soldiers' contributions to America's post-Civil War expansion and consolidation and sheds light on the myriad obstacles the buffalo soldiers faced.' (Publisher)

The story of the black soldiers who helped save the Union, conquer the West, and build the nation. In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass promised African Americans that serving in the military offered a sure path to freedom. Once a black man became a soldier, Douglass declared, “there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.” More than 180,000 black men heeded his call to defend the Union—only to find the path to equality would not be so straightforward. In this sharply drawn history, Professor Elizabeth D. Leonard reveals the aspirations and achievements as well as the setbacks and disappointments of African American soldiers. Drawing on eye-opening firsthand accounts, she restores black soldiers to their place in the arc of American history, from the Civil War and its promise of freedom until the dawn of the 20th century and the full retrenchment of Jim Crow. Along the way, Leonard offers a nuanced account of black soldiers’ involvement in the Indian Wars, their attempts to desegregate West Point and gain proper recognition for their service, and their experience of Reconstruction nationally, as blacks worked to secure their place in an ever-changing nation. With abundant primary research, enlivened by memorable characters and vivid descriptions of army life, Men of Color to Arms! is an illuminating portrait of a group of men whose contributions to American history need to be further recognized.