"I hope to provide students interested in the Native American past with an understanding of how the varied parts of the story fit into a larger whole. My goal is to tell a story of native peoples, to advance an argument. To that end, I focus upon twelve native communities whose histories encapsulate what I see as the principal themes and developments in Native American history"-- Provided by publisher.

Introduction -- Chapter 1. Myths and Legends : The Beginning of the World -- Rules for Living -- Bears ; Chapter 2. Worlds New and Worlds Old : The Fundamental Violence of Discovery -- Paths of Destruction -- Tsenacommacah -- The Mohegans -- New Worlds ; Chapter 3. Living in the New World : Mourning Wars -- Colonizing the Mohegans -- The Word of God -- Colonizing the Powhatans -- Forging the Covenant Chain -- Native Peoples and the French in a World of War -- The Pueblos' Revolt -- Horses -- The Grand Settlement -- The Cherokees -- Native Peoples and the Nature of Empires ; Chapter 4. Native Peoples and the Fall of European Empires : Penn's Woods -- The Potawatomis in a World of Conflicting Empires -- Settlement and Unsettledness -- Life at the Western Door -- Behind the Frontier -- The Great Wars for Empire -- The Proclamation and the Indian Boundary Line -- Indians and Empires ; Chapter 5. Native Peoples and the Rise of a New American Empire : Change in the Far Western World -- Declarations of Independence -- The Revolution and the Longhouse -- Cherokees and Chickamaugas -- England's Allies and the Confederation -- The Six Nations and the Empire StateConfederations -- A New Order for the Ages -- 1794, A Year of Consequence -- The White Man's Republic ; Chapter 6. Relocations and Removes : The Mohegans' Struggle for Independence -- The Rise of the Prophet -- Handsome Lake --; Dispossessing the Senecas -- Pioneers and Exiles -- Removing from the Missions -- The Optimism of the Imperialist ; Chapter 7. The Invasion of the Great West :Pledges and Promises -- Settling In and Settling Down -- Homesteaders -- Concentration -- The Indians' Civil War -- Peace and Wa r; Chapter 8. The Age of Dispossession : "Conform To It or Be Crushed By It" -- Spelatch -- Ghost Dancers -- The Assault on Indian Identity -- Living Under the New Regime -- The New Life in the Indian Territory -- The Crows and the Life on the Northern Plains -- Native Peoples in the Eastern United States -- A Movement for Reform -- The Origins of the Indian New Deal ; Chapter 9. New Deals and Old Deals : Reforming Indian Policy -- Native Peoples and World War II -- Termination and the Coalminer's Canary -- Cleaning the Slate -- New Frontiers -- Red Power ; Chapter 10. Sovereign Nations and Colonized Nations : The Importance of 1978 -- The State of the Nations -- Exercising Sovereignty -- Toward the Future.