The Encyclopedia Of Native American Biography - Softcover

Johansen, Bruce E.; Grinde Jr., Donald A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0306808706 ISBN 13: 9780306808708

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 1998

Synopsis

This wide-ranging and reliable encyclopedia offers the most up-to-date information on prominent and lesser-known Native American military leaders, chiefs, shamans, explorers, scientists, athletes, inventors, artists, writers, and political activists, as well as on a select number of significant non-Indians (from Benjamin Franklin to Marlon Brando). Sample entries include Big Foot, Black Elk, Cochise, Cornplanter, Crazy Horse, Vine Deloria, Jr., Michael A. Dorris, Louise Erdrich, Geronimo, Louis Hall, Chief Joseph, Lame Deer, Russell Means, Osceola, Ely Parker, Leonard Peltier, Plenty Coups, Pocahontas, Red Cloud, Will Rogers, Wendy Rose, John Ross, Sacajawea, Sequoyah, Sitting Bull, Tecumseh, Jim Thorpe, Victorio, Wooden Leg, and over 550 others. Together, they comprise a startling and unforgettable mosaic of nearly four centuries of Native American history.

About this title

Review

Much needed and long overdue, this reference work gathers the life stories of more than 600 Native Americans. Many of them, like Tecumseh and Crazy Horse, are familiar; many others, from Abomazine to Honayawas to Zotom, are less well known, and their histories are uniformly fascinating. Among other things, you'll learn that Geronimo was a devoted baseball player; that a thriving Indian slave market existed in Los Angeles after the Civil War; and that Crispus Attucks was not only the first African American to die in the American Revolution but was also the first American Indian to do so, for Attucks's mother was a Massachuset. One test of a good encyclopedia is whether it bears reading from start to finish, and this passes with distinction.

About the Author

Donald A. Grinde, Jr., Ph.D., a Yamasee by birth, is the director of the ALANA (African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American) Studies Program and a professor of history at the University of Vermont.

Edition details

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0306808706
• ISBN 13: 9780306808708
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480