A review by mollysmith1313
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

4.0

One way this book could be summarized is by this line in the book “…Europeans created the Doctrine of Discovery to justify their takeover of any territory they “discovered” regardless of whose home it was. From an Indigenous perspective, European claims to Indigenous lands were not legitimate.” It includes terms and events probably covered in your school history books, but it also embellishes upon it with much more detail. It can be hard to read because within those details lie the disgusting obvious ethnic cleansing part of US history. Terminology is a key part of the book’s perspective of narration too. The early US citizens we may have called “settlers” in school, from the Indigenous perspective, should (and are in this book) instead be called “colonizers,” “invaders,” or “squatters” on land that was already occupied by many nations with their own city-states and well developed systems of governance—which also included large amounts of land already networked with roads for trading and seasonal migration, as well as land carefully shaped for their agriculture, hunting havens, and access to water. They had/have complex governments, cultures, languages, customs. They have seldom consented to anything that has made them relocate, lose land or resources, or participate in assimilation. But this book also does a great job highlighting all the ways Indigenous people have prevailed and added so much to the land and cultures we all share at this time in history. I’m glad I read this book to dig deeper than my previous experience with this topic in my education did, and I recommend it to anyone (not just young people) who want to do the same.