Adult Nonfiction: Indigenous Stories

Updated October 15, 2025
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Adult Nonfiction: Indigenous Stories

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"The chiefs now in this city" : indians and the urban frontier in early America
Calloway, Colin G.
Paper Book
During the years of the Early Republic, prominent Native leaders regularly traveled to American cities - Albany, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Quebec, New York, and New Orleans - primarily on diplomatic or trade business, but also from curiosity and adventurousness. They were...
1491 : new revelations of the Americas before Columbus
Mann, Charles C.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492--from "a remarkably engaging writer" (The New York Times Book Review).   Contrary to what...
An American sunrise : poems
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family's lands and opens a dialogue with history. In An American Sunrise, Harjo...
As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock
Gilio-Whitaker, Dina
Paper Book
The story of Native peoples' resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community's rich history of activism Through the unique lens of "Indigenized environmental justice," Indigenous researcher and...
Becoming Kin : An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future
Krawec, Patty/ Estes, Nick (FRW)
Paper Book
Included in the Lakota People's Law Project Decolonized Reading List for 2025 We find our way forward by going back. The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and...
Blood moon : an American epic of war and splendor in the Cherokee Nation
Sedgwick, John
Paper Book
"Riveting...Engrossing...Mr. Sedgwick's subtitle calls the Cherokee story an 'American Epic,' and indeed it is." --H. W. Brands, The Wall Street Journal An astonishing untold story from America's past--a sweeping, powerful, and necessary work of history that reads like...
The Blue Jay's Dance: A Memoir of Early Motherhood
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Louise Erdrich's moving meditation on the experience of motherhood--the first nonfiction work by one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. Louise Erdrich's first major work of nonfiction, The Blue Jay's Dance, brilliantly and...
Braiding sweetgrass : [indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants]
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member...
A brave and cunning prince : the great chief Opechancanough and the war for America
Horn, James P. P.
Paper Book
The extraordinary story of the Powhatan chief who waged a lifelong struggle to drive European settlers from his homeland In the mid-sixteenth century, Spanish explorers in the Chesapeake Bay kidnapped an Indian child and took him back to Spain and subsequently to...
A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South
Cozzens, Peter
Paper Book
The story of the pivotal struggle between the Creek Indians and an insatiable, young United States for control over the Deep South--from the acclaimed historian and prize-winning author of The Earth is Weeping The Creek War is one of the most tragic episodes in American...
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee : an Indian history of the American West : the illustrated edition
Brown, Dee
Paper Book
For the first time: a full-color illustrated edition of Dee Brown’s classic history of the American West! Eloquent, heartbreaking, and meticulously documented, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee follows the systematic...
Carry : a memoir of survival on stolen land
Jensen, Toni
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A powerful, poetic memoir about what it means to exist as an Indigenous woman in America, told in snapshots of the author's encounters with gun violence. Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize * Goop Book Club Pick *...
The death of Sitting Bear : new and selected poems
Momaday, N. Scott
Paper Book
"These are the poems of a master poet. . . . When you read these poems, you will learn to hear deeply the sound a soul makes as it sings about the mystery of dreaming and becoming." -- Joy Harjo, Mvskoke Nation, U.S. Poet Laureate Pulitzer Prize winner and...
Do all Indians live in tipis? : questions and answers from the National Museum of the American Indian
Paper Book
How much do you really know about totem poles, tipis, and Tonto? There are hundreds of Native tribes in the Americas, and there may be thousands of misconceptions about Native customs, culture, and history. In this illustrated guide, experts from Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian...
The Earth Is All That Lasts : Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation
Gardner, Mark Lee
Paper Book
"Fast-paced and highly absorbing." --Wall Street Journal A magisterial new history of the fierce final chapter of the "Indian Wars," told through the lives of the two most legendary and consequential American Indian leaders, who led Sioux resistance and triumphed at the...
Earth keeper : reflections on the American land
Momaday, N. Scott
Paper Book
"Dazzling. . . . In glittering prose, Momaday recalls stories passed down through generations, illuminating the earth as a sacrosanct place of wonder and abundance. At once a celebration and a warning, Earth Keeper is an impassioned defense of all that our endangered...
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask
Treuer, Anton
Paper Book
"I had a profoundly well-educated Princetonian ask me, 'Where is your tomahawk?' I had a beautiful woman approach me in the college gymnasium and exclaim, 'You have the most beautiful red skin.' I took a friend to see Dances with Wolves and was told, 'Your people have a beautiful culture.'...
From the ashes : my story of being M
Thistle, Jesse
Ebook
*#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER *Winner, Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Nonfiction *Winner, Indigenous Voices Awards *Winner, High Plains Book Awards *Finalist, CBC Canada Reads *A Globe and Mail Book of the Year *An Indigo Book of the...
Gallop toward the sun : Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison's struggle for the destiny of a nation
Stark, Peter
Paper Book
A vivid account of the rivalry between future president William Henry Harrison and the Shawnee chief Tecumseh--and of the Native American alliance that fought westward expansion--from the New York Times bestselling author of Astoria "Taut, multi-layered . . ....
The heartbeat of Wounded Knee : native America from 1890 to the present
Treuer, David
Paper Book
Beginning with the tribes' devastating loss of land and the forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools, he shows how the period of greatest adversity also helped to incubate a unifying Native identity. He traces how conscription in the US military and the pull of urban...
An indigenous peoples' history of the United States
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples ...
Ira Hayes : The Akimel O'odham Warrior, World War II, and the Price of Heroism
Holm, Tom
Paper Book
The gripping, forgotten tale of Ira Hayes--a Native American icon and World War II legend who famously helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima but spent the latter half of his life haunted by being a war hero. IRA HAYES tells the story of Ira...
Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, "one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."--New York...
Little big bully
Erdrich, Heid E.
Paper Book
Little Big Bully begins with a question asked of a collective and troubled we - how did we come to this? In answer, this book offers personal myth, American and Native American contexts, and allegories driven by women's resistance to narcissists, stalkers, and harassers. These poems are immediate,...
Living nations, living words : an anthology of first peoples poetry
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
Joy Harjo, the first Native poet to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, has championed the voices of Native peoples past and present. Her signature laureate project gathers the work of contemporary Native poets into a national, fully digital map of story, sound, and space, celebrating their vital and...
Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age
McLeod, Darrel J.
Ebook
As a small boy in remote Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod is immersed in his Cree family's history, passed down in the stories of his mother, Bertha. There he is surrounded by her tales of joy and horror--of the strong men in their family, of her love for Darrel, and of the cruelty she and her...
Native American archaeology in the parks : a guide to heritage sites in our national parks and monuments
Feder, Kenneth L.
Paper Book
Historian Wallace Stegner characterized America's National Park system as "the best idea we ever had." One can quibble with that, but, indeed, it was a pretty good idea! This book specifically is a guide and a celebration of 30 of those national parks, national historical parks, and national...
New Native Kitchen : Celebrating Modern Recipes of the American Indian
Bitsoie, Freddie/ Fraioli, James O./ Bacon, Quentin (PHT)/ Trujillo, Gabriella (ILT)
Paper Book
Celebrate modern Indigenous cuisine with this beautiful cookbook from the renowned Native foods educator and former chef of Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. This groundbreaking cookbook brings together modern...
Notable native people : 50 indigenous leaders, dreamers, and changemakers from past and present
Keene, Adrienne
Paper Book
An accessible and educational illustrated book profiling 50 notable American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people, from NBA star Kyrie Irving of the Standing Rock Lakota to Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation An American Indian...
Our history is the future : Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the long tradition of Indigenous resistance
Estes, Nick
Paper Book
How two centuries of Indigenous resistance created the movement proclaiming "Water is life" In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous...
Poet Warrior: A Memoir
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as U.S. poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of...
Postcolonial love poem
Diaz, Natalie
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN POETRY FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY Natalie Diaz's highly anticipated follow-up to When My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American Book Award Postcolonial Love Poem is an...
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
Blackhawk, Ned
Paper Book
National Bestseller Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History * Winner of 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction * Winner of the 2024 Mark Lynton History Prize ...
Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky : Modern Plant-based Recipes Using Native American Ingredients
Frank, Lois Ellen
Paper Book
Winner of Two IACP Awards Food Issues & Matters * Health & Nutrition This enriching cookbook celebrates eight important plants Native Americans introduced to the rest of the world: corn, beans, squash, chile, tomato, potato, vanilla, and...
Send a runner : a Navajo honors the long walk
Eskeets, Edison
Paper Book
2022 Southwest Books of the Year The Navajo tribe, the Diné, are the largest tribe in the United States and live across the American Southwest. But over a century ago, they were nearly wiped out by the Long Walk, a forced removal of most of the Diné people to a military...
The Sioux Chef's indigenous kitchen
Sherman, Sean
Paper Book
2018 James Beard Award Winner: Best American Cookbook Named one of the Best Cookbooks of 2017 by NPR, The Village Voice, Smithsonian Magazine, UPROXX, New York Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Mpls. St....
Spirit run : a 6,000-mile marathon through North America's stolen land
Paper Book
In this New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, the son of working-class Mexican immigrants flees a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala in this "stunning memoir that moves to the rhythm of feet, labor, and the many...
Talking with hands : everything you need to start signing Native American hand talk : a complete beginner's guide with over 200 words and phrases
Pahsetopah, Mike
Ebook
Explore Native American culture and learn Hand Talk, also known as Plains Indian Sign Language, Plains Sign Talk, and First Nation Sign Language. In Talking with Hands, professional Native American dancer, storyteller, and educator Mike Pahsetopah...
The three-cornered war : the Union, the Confederacy, and native peoples in the fight for the West
Nelson, Megan Kate
Paper Book
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History A dramatic, riveting, and "fresh look at a region typically obscured in accounts of the Civil War. American history buffs will relish this entertaining and eye-opening portrait" (Publishers Weekly). ...
Thunder in the mountains : Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War
Sharfstein, Daniel J
Paper Book
After the Civil War and Reconstruction, a new struggle raged in the Northern Rockies. In the summer of 1877, General Oliver Otis Howard, a champion of African American civil rights, ruthlessly pursued hundreds of Nez Perce families who resisted moving onto a reservation. Standing in his way was...
We are still here : a photographic history of the American Indian Movement
Bancroft, Dick
Paper Book
 The American Indian Movement, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, burst into that turbulent time with passion, anger, and radical acts of resistance. Spurred by the Civil Rights movement, Native people began to protest the decades--centuries--of corruption, racism, and abuse they had endured....
Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
A magnificent selection of fifty poems to celebrate three-term US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo's fifty years as a poet. Over a long, influential career in poetry, Joy Harjo has been praised for her "warm, oracular voice" (John Freeman, Boston Globe) that speaks "from a deep and...
When the light of the world was subdued, our songs came through : a Norton anthology of Native nations poetry
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo gathers the work of more than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations, into one momentous volume. This landmark anthology celebrates the indigenous peoples of North America, the first poets of this country, whose literary traditions stretch back...
Why we serve : Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces
Harris, Alexandra N.
Paper Book
Rare stories from more than 250 years of Native Americans' service in the military Why We Serve commemorates the 2020 opening of the National Native American Veterans Memorial at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the first landmark in Washington, DC,...
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