Thomas King is a dual American-Canadian citizen of mixed heritage (Wikipedia lists Cherokee, German and Greek backgrounds), and he identifies strongly with his Cherokee heritage. He is also quite the storyteller, in the best possible way. King starts his “account” of North American history by refusing to label it as a history- noting, in fact that all histories are “stories we tell about the past”. He provides a sweeping overview of Indian-White relations in the US and Canada, in more or less chronological (though expressly non-encompassing) order. He occasionally goes off on tangents, and the topics that interest him get more play than other events. I didn’t mind this cherry picking; instead, I found that King’s passionate interest was infectious, and I came away loving a number of the things that King does (Roy Rogers!). I also loved King’s style of writing, which is casual and easy to read- no high academic prose here despite it being a kind of history book. King often broke the fourth wall of the history/ story he was telling to tell the reader that his wife made him put this part in, or suggested he take it out, etc.- all of this felt more like you were listening to him talk than reading a history book.
And whew, what a shameful history. The governments of both Canada and the US (and the British before them) made and broke so many promises, and generally have behaved atrociously while only semi-camouflaging their primary goal, that of land acquisition. Even when they think they’re doing good things for the native people, they’re still mostly doing bad things (hello residential schools…). I knew some of the history King espouses but I would say not the half of it- I couldn’t believe there was so much I didn’t know, especially since I took classes on first nations history in college.
Finally, and in theme with the CBR Bingo tag (Own Voices), it was enlightening to hear this account from King, whose people haven’t historically been the ones writing the history. In my day job I interact with some of these ideas (ie: disputes about the weight given to oral histories in negotiations as well as in regulatory hearings), and I appreciate having more first nations voices reminding me that my perceptions of North American history are shaped as much by the omissions as the inclusions.
CBR11Bingo- Own Voices