Native Nations Quotes

“Colonists, whether successfully founding a permanent colony or not, are usually portrayed from their first arrival as either the main story of North America or the harbinger of doom in stories that do center Native Americans, while Native people too often are seen as a sideshow—a primitive people whose losing streak starts the minute Europeans land. In reality, Native Americans had clear ideas about how Europeans could fit into their world, and in the early centuries they often persuaded Europeans to follow their customs and forward their goals.”
― Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

“The former residents of North America’s great cities reversed course, turning away from urbanization and political and economic centralization to build new ways of living . . . Smaller-scale communities allowed for both more sustainable economies and more widespread political participation. . . . In some ways, Native Americans took a shortcut to democracy, developing participatory politics rapidly after rejecting the hierarchies of the twelfth century.”
― Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

“Native history was pushed into archaeology and anthropology, where Indigenous people were portrayed as having “cultures” more than history, essential and timeless ways of being rather than, like all humanity, changing over time.”
― Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America