book review: an indigenous peoples' history of the united states by roxanne dunbar-ortiz
05 Nov 2021
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
What are the main ideas?
- “north america is a crime scene.” the united states’ existence as a country is only possible by way of it’s original sin, genocide.
- u.s. expansion, first in north american and then globally, was waged through total war. different from other traditions of war, total war takes as its targets noncombatants (women and children especially) and food supplies of the enemy. other traditions of war take as an assumption that those at war are the militaries and the civilians are safe. it is this wielding of dishonorable war that allowed the u.s. to eventually (slowly, haltingly, with much resistance) overtake enough land to render military conflict from indigenous nations ineffective.
- the myths of settler colonialism are effective, pervasive, destructive, and genocidal. among many, a few that stick out to me: america was conquered from east to west; america was mostly settled under the initiative of aspiring, entrepid families looking for land to call home.
- it was the combination of u.s. military force, u.s. government policy, land speculation and the greed of its promulgators, narrative myths created by white supremacist writers, and settler immigrants that settled america over time, largely by cheating, warmongering, or forcing the hand of indigenous nations. a common pattern was: send violent settler rangers and land speculators, send the u.s. military when things didn’t go well enough, claim that indigenous resistance is cause for more military force, then require complete submission or total destruction of the indigenous nation, even when the u.s. was losing.
- the transformation of sacred lands into real estate is one of the root causes of america’s rise.
- the “race to innocence” aptly captures the reaction style of the national conscious when in avoidance of the dark truths at the root of the countries founding.
If I implemented one idea from this book right now, which one would it be?
it’s my job, in small and large ways to take responsibility for the ways settler colonialist, past and present, warps the society i live in. “while living persons are not responsible for what their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in, which is a product of that past.” — late native historican jack forbes
How would I describe the book to a friend?
honestly? this book is devastating. and that’s coming from someone who has resisted american exceptionalism for probably two decades. this book is a decade by decade (sometimes year by year) dismantling of all our national, settler, and colonial myths. by going into all the gorey and brutal details of the way america came to be, i understand at new levels just how important indigenous sovereignty is. dunbar-ortiz does a fantastic job at breaking mountains of difficulty into relatively digestible sections that have all the punch of the truth and yet somehow stay at just the right level of “whelm” (not over, not under). i strongly recommend reading this with a friend or a group. and definitely drink lots of water and make space to be with feelings that come up about all the ways you’ve/we’ve been lied to.
ps - i avoided reading this book out of fear that it was going to be as hard to read as zinn’s “a people’s history of the united states.” it was a much easier read than i expected, though still not easy.
reminder: book review structure
words / writing / post-processing
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