Customer Reviews

Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal

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Patty Loew takes a novel approach in this book and uses Native American sources to tell Native American history! Oral history, treaty minutes, recorded speeches by Native American leaders, and other Native sources are used over the traditional "white" sources that make up the majority of Native American history. The book reads extremely well and is intensely interesting. Each chapter tells the story of a Wisconsin Indian nation from the point of view of that nation. This is an enjoyable book to read for anyone interested in Native American history. Moreover, it is an invaluable addition to scholarship and a (hopefully) trend-setting example of using Native sources to tell Native history.

This is used as a textbook for one of my American Indian Studies courses this semester and I love it. The author wrote it as a book of history so it doesn't feel or read like a boring textbook. Loew relies on oral history and many Native texts to really get the Indian history as accurate as possible, she tried hard to leave out the white American influences and assumptions. This should be a must for anyone interested in Native history.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I found who Patty Loew is and her background as an Ojibway.I remember her as a newsperson on the 5:30 news. This book is very nice in making it very clear who the tribes are that reside in Wisconsin, where they came from, how they got here and what they are doing now. I must be clear, this is an overview, not a extensive, study those are already available from many sources.I enjoyed the book very much and it was an easy read and well written.

"Indian Nations of Wisconsin" by Patty Loew covers the challenges and journeys of many Native Americans that are a part of Wisconsin History. I had decided to also look at this book as a way of finding out more about my Menominee Indian heritage. The Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Oneida, Menominee, Mohican, Ho-Chunk, and Brothertown Indians are covered in this book. There is a very detailed and informative chapter (starts on page 12) on the influence of European Arrivals in Wisconsin. There is a very important historical detail at the end of the "European Arrivals" chapter that greatly informed me as to what happened during the American Revolution. However, anyone looking at this review is going to have to look inside the book to find out for themselves. The information surrounding the boarding schools for the children is also discussed. "Indian Nations of Wisconsin" is a unique Native American studies book for the fact that it covers diverse examples of strong-willed persistence to thrive regardless of external circumstances.