Adult Nonfiction: Indigenous Stories

Updated October 15, 2025
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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...
Arts & crafts of the Native American tribes
Johnson, Michael
Paper Book
Arts and Crafts of the Native American Tribes is the authoritative illustrated reference that has been carefully created to be a companion to Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North America. It examines in detail how Native American culture evolved and considers the regional...
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...
Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth
Woodley, Randy
Paper Book
What does it mean to become rooted in the land? How can we become better relatives to our greatest teacher, the Earth? Becoming Rootedinvites us to live out a deeply spiritual relationship with the whole community of creation and with Creator. Through meditations and ideas for...
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...
Born of lakes and plains : mixed-descent peoples and the making of the American West
Hyde, Anne Farrar
Paper Book
A New Yorker Best Book of 2022 A fresh history of the West grounded in the lives of mixed-descent Native families who first bridged and then collided with racial boundaries. Often overlooked, there is mixed blood at the heart of America. And at the heart of Native...
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
Brown, Dee
Paper Book
The landmark, bestselling account of the crimes against American Indians during the 19th century, now on its 50th Anniversary. First published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction...
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 *...
Corn dance : inspired First American cuisine
Oden, Loretta Barrett
Paper Book
Growing up in Shawnee, Oklahoma, among a host of grandmothers and aunties, Loretta Barrett Oden learned the lessons and lore of Potawatomi cooking, along with those of her father's family, whose ancestors arrived on the Mayflower. This rich cultural blend came to bear in the iconic restaurant she...
Covered with night : a story of murder and indigenous justice in early America
Eustace, Nicole
Paper Book
In the winter of 1722, on the eve of a major conference between the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois) and Anglo-American colonists, a pair of colonial fur traders brutally assaulted a Seneca hunter near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, the...
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...
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...
First Nations Version : an indigenous translation of the New Testament
Paper Book
OVER 100,000 COPIES SOLD Academy of Parish Clergy Reference Book of the Year "This remarkable retelling offers plenty of rewards and will especially pique those open to a novel interpretation of the religious text." --Publishers Weekly Starred Review ...
From the ashes : my story of being M
Thistle, Jesse
Paper Book
*#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 heart of everything that is : the untold story of Red Cloud, an American legend
Drury, Bob.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An astonishing untold story of the American West The great Sioux warrior-statesman Red Cloud was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on...
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...
Honouring Our Ancestors : Takatapui, Two-spirit and Indigenous Lgbtqi+ Well-being
Pihama, Leonie (EDT)/ Green, Alison (EDT)
Paper Book
In these rigorous and challenging essays, writers from Aotearoa and Turtle Island (Canada and the United States of America) explore the well-being of takatapui, two-spirit, and Maori and Indigenous LGBTQI+ communities. Themes include resistance, reclamation, empowerment, transformation and healing....
In whose ruins : power, possession, and the landscapes of American empire
Puglionesi, Alicia
Paper Book
In this "first-rate work of historical research and storytelling" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), four sites of American history are revealed as places where truth was written over by oppressive fiction--with profound repercussions for politics past and present. Popular...
Indigenous continent : a new history of America
Hm?l??nen, Pekka
Paper Book
There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes like this: Columbus "discovers" a strange continent and brings back tales of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing "New World" as possible. Though Indigenous peoples fight back,...
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 ...
Indigiqueerness : A Conversation About Storytelling
Whitehead, Joshua/ Abdou, Angie (CON)
Paper Book
Evolving from a conversation between Joshua Whitehead and Angie Abdou, Indigiqueerness is part dialogue, part collage, and part memoir. Beginning with memories of his childhood poetry and prose and travelling through the library of his life, Whitehead contemplates the role of theory, Indigenous...
Invisible No More: Voices from Native America
Foxworth, Raymond
Paper Book
For too long, Native American people in the United States have been stereotyped as vestiges of the past, invisible citizens in their own land obliged to remind others, "We are still here!" Yet today, Native leaders are at the center of social change, challenging philanthropic organizations that have...
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...
Living resistance : an indigenous vision for seeking wholeness every day
Curtice, Kaitlin B.
Paper Book
In an era in which "resistance" has become tokenized, popular Indigenous author Kaitlin B. Curtice reclaims it as a basic human calling. Resistance is for every human who longs to see their neighbors' holistic flourishing. We each have a role to play in the world right where we are, and our everyday...
Mamaskatch : a Cree coming of age
McLeod, Darrel J.
Paper Book
Growing up in the tiny village of Smith, Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod was surrounded by his Cree family's history. In shifting and unpredictable stories, his mother, Bertha, shared narratives of their culture, their family and the cruelty that she and her sisters endured in residential school....
Nehiyawetan Kikinahk? / Speaking Cree in the Home: A Beginner's Guide for Families
Custer, Andrea
Paper Book
A hands-on guide for parents and caregivers to develop best practices in revitalizing and teaching Cree to young children. In nēhiyawētān kīkināhk / Speaking Cree in the Home, Belinda Daniels and Andrea Custer provide an introductory text to help families...
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 interpretations of...
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...
On savage shores : how indigenous Americans discovered Europe
Dodds Pennock, Caroline
Paper Book
AN ECONOMIST AND SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A landmark work of narrative history that shatters our previous Eurocentric understanding of the Age of Discovery by telling the story of the Indigenous Americans who journeyed across the Atlantic to Europe after...
The other slavery : the uncovered story of Indian enslavement in America
Res
Paper Book
A landmark history -- the sweeping story of the enslavement of tens of thousands of Indians across America, from the time of the conquistadors up to the early 20th century Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet,...
Our Brave Foremothers : Celebrating 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous Women Who Changed the Course of History
Kennedy, Rozella/ Avelino, Joelle (ILT)
Paper Book
Inspired by her own foremothers' legacies and the friendships formed throughout her life, Rozella Kennedy centers and celebrates the stories of 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous women--both famous and little-known--who changed the course of US history.  
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...
Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe
Maraniss, David
Paper Book
A riveting new biography of America's greatest all-around athlete by the bestselling author of the classic biography When Pride Still Mattered. Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. He won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon...
Po kahangatus
Tibble, Tayi
Paper Book
The American debut of an acclaimed young poet as she explores her identity as a twenty-first-century Indigenous woman. Poem by poem, Tibble carves out a bold new way of engaging history, of straddling modernity and ancestry, desire and exploitation. Intimate, moving, virtuosic,...
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...
Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America
Wilbur, Matika
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes. ...
Reclaiming Two-Spirits : sexuality, spiritual renewal, and sovereignty in Native America
Smithers, Gregory D.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2023 Prose Award in Cultural Anthropology and SociologyFinalist for the 2023 Publishing Triangle Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction A sweeping history of Indigenous traditions of gender, sexuality, and resistance that reveals how, despite centuries of colonialism,...
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 ...
The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles
Redvers, Nicole
Paper Book
Indigenous naturopathic doctor Nicole Redvers pairs evidence-based research with traditional healing modalities, addressing modern health problems and medical processes Modern medical science has finally caught up to what traditional healing systems have known for centuries. Many...
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 seven circles : indigenous teachings for living well
Luger, Chelsey
Paper Book
In this revolutionary self-help guide, two beloved Native American wellness activists offer wisdom for achieving spiritual, physical, and emotional wellbeing rooted in Indigenous ancestral knowledge. When wellness teachers and husband-wife duo Chelsey Luger and Thosh Collins...
Siksikaitsitapi : stories of the Blackfoot people
Many Guns, Alayna
Paper Book
Siksikaitsitapi: Stories of the Blackfoot People brings together seven authors who share stories rooted in both oral traditions and personal experiences. Many of the stories are presented in both Blackfoot and English, accompanied by full-colour illustrations and photographs that bring Blackfoot...
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...
Taw? : progressive Indigenous cuisine
Chartrand, Shane
Paper Book
tawâw [pronounced ta-WOW]: Come in, you're welcome, there's room. Acclaimed chef Shane M. Chartrand's debut cookbook explores the reawakening of Indigenous cuisine and what it means to cook, eat, and share food in our homes and communities. Born to Cree parents and raised by a...
Think indigenous : Native American spirituality for a modern world
Good Feather, Doug
Paper Book
A guide to integrating indigenous thinking into modern life for  a more interconnected and spiritual relationship with our fellow  beings, Mother Earth, and the natural ways of the universe. There is a natural law--a spiritual intelligence that we are all born with that...
Thinning blood : memoir of family, myth, and identity
Myers, Leah
Paper Book
Leah Myers may be the last member of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in her family line, due to her tribe's strict blood quantum laws. In this unflinching and intimate memoir, Myers excavates the stories of four generations of women in order to leave a record of her family. Beginning with her great...
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 the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth
Jamail, Dahr
Paper Book
We had a little real estate problem : the unheralded story of Native Americans in comedy
Nesteroff, Kliph
Paper Book
A Best Book of 2021 by NPR and Esquire From Kliph Nesteroff, "the human encyclopedia of comedy" (VICE), comes the important and underappreciated story of Native Americans and comedy. It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill's...
We refuse to forget : a true story of Black Creeks, American identity, and power
Gayle, Caleb
Paper Book
Caleb Gayle tells the story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full members. A chief named Cow Tom - a former Black slave - created a treaty with the U.S. government which recognized Creek citizenship for its Black members. This...
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 Indigenous Literatures Matter
Justice, Daniel Heath
Paper Book
Part survey of the field of Indigenous literary studies, part cultural history, and part literary polemic, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter asserts the vital significance of literary expression to the political, creative, and intellectual efforts of Indigenous peoples today. ...

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