Peter Iverson

Carlos Montezuma and the changing world of American Indians

Carlos Montezuma (1866-1923) was one of the great Native American crusaders for Indian rights in the early twentieth century. This biography by an authority on Southwest Indian history tells a dramatic story that sheds light both on Montezumas career and on the movements he influenced. A southern Arizona Yavapai called Wassaja by his parents, Montezuma was captured by rival tribesman as a boy and sold to a white man who gave him the name by which we know him. Trained as a physician, his career as a reformer began when he went to work at the Carlisle Indian School, for here--in addition to serving as physician to the famous Carlisle football team--he was able to meet many of the people centrally involved in the administration of federal Indian policy. Shortly after the turn of the century Montezuma emerged as a national leader of Native American affairs. He helped to found the Society of American Indians and became increasingly involved in the affairs of the Fort McDowell Yavapai reservation, earning fame among pan-Indian activists and among his own people in Arizona and attaining notoriety in the BIA.

Indians in American history : an introduction

This is not a conventional textbook. It contains chronologically arranged essays by thirteen authors who speak from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. The chapters can be read together or in conjunction with a survey text. They are intended to provide an introduction to the Indian side of the usual narrative. The topics will be familiar to most readers -- the Revolution, the Constitution, the Twentieth Century -- but the content will probably be new. It will provide an opening lesson in the breadth and complexity of American Indian history.

Indian Water in the New West

Brings together the views of engineers, lawyers, ecologists, economists, professional mediators, federal officials, an anthropologist, and a Native American tribal leader--all either students of these processes or protagonists in them--to discuss how the legitimate claims of both Indians and non-Indians to scarce water in the West are being settled.

Diné: A History of the Navajos and ”For Our Navajo People”: Diné Letters, Speeches, & Petitions, 1900–1960

One hundred documents written by Dine men, women, and children speaking for themselves and on behalf of their communities are collected in this book. Discovered during Iversons research for the book, these letters, speeches, and petitions, almost all previously unpublished, provide a uniquely moving portrait of the Dine during an era in which they were fighting to defend their lands and to build the Navajo Nation. Six crucial, overlapping subjects are addressed here: land, community, education, rights, government, and identity. Brief introductions to each chapter and each document provide the necessary context, and historic photographs selected by Monty Roessel (Navajo), an outstanding photographer, supplement the words of the people. Most of the vast literature about American Indians emphasises the actions and words of non-Indians. Indians become the victims, the people to whom things happen. This volume furnishes a different view of the native past. It shows Navajos making their own history. It demonstrates how the Dine worked to keep their lands, develop their economy, build their communities, educate their young people, affirm their rights, govern themselves, and maintain their heritage while forging a brighter future.

American Frontiers: Cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest

The contact of cultures on the first frontiers the struggle of empires to control tyhe frontiers forging a frontier policy in the new nation Westward expansion - political controversy and popular culture moving West and making communities Indians and the enclosing frontier, 1860-90.

Tribes and Tribulations: Misconceptions about American Indians and Their Histories

Selects topics from the seventeenth century to the present as examples of some commonly held but erroneous views on Indian-white relationships, including stereotypes of Indians as mascots.

The Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute: An American Tragedy

Friends and enemies, the history of an ambiguous relationship -- Peace and strife -- Preparation, the road to Prescott -- Prescott -- The long wait -- Progress (of sorts) -- False hopes -- Confrontation -- The end of the line -- Final thoughts.

Presidential address: Cowboys and Indians, stockmen and aborigines: The rural American west and the northern territory of Australia since 1945

Abstract The American West and the Northern Territory of Australia share common themes in their history. The experiences of Indians and Aborigines in these regions have many parallels. These are the impact of World War II, economic development, urbanization, rights to the land and modern identity.