Alvin M. Josephy (1915–2005)

This is an anthology of essays by nine Native American writers of nine different tribes/nations.

All of these nations were mentioned in the[ Journals of Lewis and Clark]. But each nation had a different perspective on the Journey of Discovery.

First of all, most of them had seen and traded with French, Spanish, Scottish, English and even Russian white men before Lewis and Clark. No matter what the L&C Journals said, they did not think of white men as gods. They did not feel that this group of whites were of greater import than others they had met. They did, however, almost universally perceive them as rude and had no regard for a Great White Father meeting his children and owning the land that they had lived in and on for centuries.

It is only in retrospect that the Native Americans learned how vastly and quickly their lives would be changed. In as little as thirty years for the nations along the Oregon coast or still within one generation (seventy years) for some of the plains people, wars were fought, treaties broken and survivors pushed onto reservations.

Several of the writers’ essays were about the shabby ways they had been treated and the ongoing negative consequences of the white colonization. Other writers comment on their oral traditions of the coming of Lewis and Clark, especially compared to the official writings of the white men of the expedition.

This is an intriguing essay collection of an event seen by most Americans as one of the highpoints of US Western exploration and settlement. However, like all history it’s an event told by the conquerors, with little regard given to the Native side, until this book. As in all anthologies, I enjoyed some essays more than others. I would recommend it to anyone interested in American frontier history.… (more)