Catalog of National Archives Microfilm Publications


Book Description

Lists and describes briefly the many series of records of high research value in the National Archives that are now available as microfilm publications.




National Archives Microfilm Publications


Book Description

Selected groups of our nation's records that have high research value.







Native Americans, Christianity, and the Reshaping of the American Religious Landscape


Book Description

In this interdisciplinary collection of essays, Joel W. Martin and Mark A. Nicholas gather emerging and leading voices in the study of Native American religion to reconsider the complex and often misunderstood history of Native peoples' engagement with Christianity and with Euro-American missionaries. Surveying mission encounters from contact through the mid-nineteenth century, the volume alters and enriches our understanding of both American Christianity and indigenous religion. The essays here explore a variety of postcontact identities, including indigenous Christians, "mission friendly" non-Christians, and ex-Christians, thereby exploring the shifting world of Native-white cultural and religious exchange. Rather than questioning the authenticity of Native Christian experiences, these scholars reveal how indigenous peoples negotiated change with regard to missions, missionaries, and Christianity. This collection challenges the pervasive stereotype of Native Americans as culturally static and ill-equipped to navigate the roiling currents associated with colonialism and missionization. The contributors are Emma Anderson, Joanna Brooks, Steven W. Hackel, Tracy Neal Leavelle, Daniel Mandell, Joel W. Martin, Michael D. McNally, Mark A. Nicholas, Michelene Pesantubbee, David J. Silverman, Laura M. Stevens, Rachel Wheeler, Douglas L. Winiarski, and Hilary E. Wyss.




History of Fort Davis, Texas


Book Description




Capitalism on the Frontier


Book Description

Focusing on the Clark?s Fort Bottom, a twenty-five-mile stretch between present-day Park City and Billings, Montana, this pathbreaking study examines the successive stages of capitalist development in Billings and the Yellowstone Valley during the nineteenth century. From the subsistence and barter economy of the Native Americans, through the fur trade era and the settlers? introduction of a market economy, the introduction of industrial capitalism by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the increasing influence of corporate capitalism in the latter part of the century, Carroll Van West shows how each stage affected the relationships and choices shared by the local inhabitants. By setting local events in a broader context, West not only illuminates the circumstances unique to the Yellowstone Valley but sheds new light on a central issue of western history: the interaction of local, regional, and national economies and the influence of corporate decisions made in the east on western settlement and urban development.




Ioway Life


Book Description

In 1837 the Ioways, an Indigenous people who had called most of present-day Iowa and Missouri home, were suddenly bound by the Treaty of 1836 with the U.S. federal government to restrict themselves to a two-hundred-square-mile parcel of land west of the Missouri River. Forcibly removed to the newly created Great Nemaha Agency, the Ioway men, women, and children, numbering nearly a thousand, were promised that through hard work and discipline they could enter mainstream American society. All that was required was that they give up everything that made them Ioway. In Ioway Life, Greg Olson provides the first detailed account of how the tribe met this challenge during the first two decades of the agency’s existence. Within the Great Nemaha Agency’s boundaries, the Ioways lived alongside the U.S. Indian agent, other government employees, and Presbyterian missionaries. These outside forces sought to manipulate every aspect of the Ioways’ daily life, from their manner of dress and housing to the way they planted crops and expressed themselves spiritually. In the face of the white reformers’ contradictory assumptions—that Indians could assimilate into the American mainstream, and that they lacked the mental and moral wherewithal to transform—the Ioways became adept at accepting necessary changes while refusing religious and cultural conversion. Nonetheless, as Olson’s work reveals, agents and missionaries managed to plant seeds of colonialism that would make the Ioways susceptible to greater government influence later on—in particular, by reducing their self-sufficiency and undermining their traditional structure of leadership. Ioway Life offers a complex and nuanced picture of the Ioways’ efforts to retain their tribal identity within the constrictive boundaries of the Great Nemaha Agency. Drawing on diaries, newspapers, and correspondence from the agency’s files and Presbyterian archives, Olson offers a compelling case study in U.S. colonialism and Indigenous resistance.




The Chippewas of Lake Superior


Book Description

This book tells the story of the Chippewa Indians in the regions around Lake Superior-the fabled land of Kitchigami. It tells of their woodland life, the momentous impact of three centuries of European and American societies on their culture, and how the retention of their tribal identity and traditions proved such a source of strength for the Chippewas that the federal government finally abandoned its policy of coercive assimilation of the tribe. The Chippewas, especially the Lake Superior bands, have been neglected by historians, perhaps because they fought no bloody wars of resistance against the westward-driving white pioneers who overwhelmed them in the nineteenth century. Yet, historically, the Chippewas were one of the most important Indian groups north of Mexico. Their expansive north woods homeland contained valuable resources, forcing them to play important roles in regional enterprises such as the French, British, and American fur trade. Neither exterminated nor removed to the semiarid Great Plains, the Lake Superior bands have remained on their native lands and for the past century have continued to develop their interests in lumbering, fishing, farming, mining, shipping, and tourism. Now, for the first time in three hundred years, white domination is no longer the major theme of Chippewa life. The chains of paternalism have been broken. The possessors of many federal and state contracts, confident in their administrative ability, proud of their Indian heritage, and well organized politically, the Lake Superior bands are determined to chart their own course. In bringing his readers this overview of the Chippewa experience, the author emphasizes major themes for the entire sweep of Lake Superior Chippewa history. He focuses in detail on events, regions, and reservations which illustrate those themes. Historians, ethnologists, other Indian tribes, and the Chippewas themselves will find much of interest in this account of how previous tribal experiences have shaped Chippewa life in the 1970's.