Killing the White Man's Indian

the long version

In the face of the current, highly romanticized view of Native Americans, Killing the White Man's Indian bravely confronts our myths and misconceptions to reveal the realities of tribal life today. Following two centuries of broken treaties and virtual extermination of the "savage red man," Americans have recast Native Americans into another equally stereotyped role, that of eternal victims, politically powerless and weakened by poverty and alcoholism, yet whose spiritual ties with the natural world form the last, best hope of salvaging our natural environment and ennobling our souls. What will surprise many Americans, however, is that a virtual revolution is under way in Indian Country, from New England to Florida, and from New York to the Pacific Northwest. It is an upheaval of epic proportions: for the first time in generations, Indians are shaping their own destinies largely outside the control of whites, reinventing Indian education and justice, and exploiting the principle of tribal sovereignty in ways that empower tribal government far beyond most Americans' imaginations - posing profound challenges to regional economies, and both state and local governments. Based on four years of research on tribal reservations, and written without a hidden political bias or agenda, Killing the White Man's Indian takes on Native American politics and policies today in all their contradictory - and controversial - guises.