Dunbar-Ortiz first sets a picture in Chapter 1 of the Americas with thriving Indigenous nations and civilizations prior to the arrival of Europeans. Chapters 1 through 3 focus on establishing the background information necessary to understand the colonization of North America. In her introductory chapter, Dunbar-Ortiz identifies settler colonialism as the cause of destruction of Indigenous communities and the root of a bloody past we need to understand as the reality of United States history. and wars against Indigenous peoples throughout before reaching modern overseas imperialism and militarism.Ĭontent Warning: This guide contains sensitive and potentially triggering content concerning extreme violence, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and sexual abuse.Īn Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States strives to break down myths and beliefs of the founding of the United States and associated assumptions abouts its history. Instead, she organizes it through the lens of Indigenous peoples and discusses first the Americas pre-colonization before discussing European colonization and continues through the birth of the U.S.
Revolutionary War against Britain through major U.S presidential periods, the Civil War, and so on. history textbooks that start with colonial history and then the U.S. Importantly, Dunbar-Ortiz rejects the traditional chronology framing found in U.S. Her chronological retelling starts with pre-colonialism and follows through the founding of the United States into the 21st century. Her goals and intentions for the book are simple: to shed light on the history of the United States through an Indigenous perspective, especially by demonstrating that governmental policies against Indigenous peoples were from the beginning designed to annihilate or displace Indigenous people, and to reveal how acknowledging the past can help society move forward. She writes as an activist historian by combining historical narrative with advocacy for certain strategies for the future.
Dunbar-Ortiz replaces the traditional historical framework used by scholars and historians with respect to the history of the United States and provides a historical analysis within a colonial framework.
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