Red Man's America: A History of Indians in the United States

By Ruth M. Underhill

Book Overview

Red Man's America meets the great need for a comprehensive study of Indian societies from the first Stone Age hunters to the American citizens of today. Beginning with the first migrations of primitive man from Siberia in the Old World to Alaska in the New, probably during the latter part of the Pleistocene glaciations, and his subsequent migration southward and eastward, the author takes up in turn the tribes and cultures of the various regions of North America.

The material Professor Underhill has gathered from the fields of archaeology, ethnology, and history, together with that drawn from her own experience in the United States Indian Service, produces a fascinating narrative. Red Man's America is an important contribution to our heritage of Indian life and lore.

"A work for which both sociologist and historian will be forever grateful. The author has combined a long period of study with actual field work in the service of the Indian to produce a work that gives a brief, but well written and accurate, sketch of the origins, backgrounds, and customs of the various North American tribes. . . . There is no other modern single volume that contains as much information on the subject."--E.R. Vollmar, The Historical Bulletin

"Liveliness in style and illustration, together with perspicacity in content, makes this book a useful introduction to the civilization of the original inhabitants of the land."--Pacific Historical Review

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226841650
• ISBN13: 9780226841656
• Release Date: December 1971
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Pretty Good Basic Overview of the Subject

First published more than fifty years ago, in 1953, the revised edition of "Red Man's America" remains one of the most important works to appear on the history and culture of Native Americans in the twentieth century. It provides an exhaustive exploration of the first peoples of America from Stone Age hunter/gatherer tribes to the highly organized civilizations of later eras. Underhill emphasizes the origins, backgrounds, and customs of the various North American First Peoples and explores their commonalties and divergences. The book is a fine work of history, sociology, and anthropology. In fourteen chapters, Underhill discusses the migration of peoples from Siberia over the Bering Strait to the American Northwest. She then moves on to the development of agriculture, the rise of the so-called "civilized" tribes of the Southeast, and the encounters with Europeans in the Southeast. Underhill then moves to the Northeast, treating the development of Algonquin culture and the Iroquois Confederacy. Then she explores the history and culture of the Calumet of the Great Lakes and the Upper Mississippi. This is followed with a discussion of the horse culture of the Great Plains and the agricultural civilizations of the Southwest.The latter portion of the book deals with the Navaho and Apache, whom Underhill characterizes as the late arrivals to America. She then investigates the Native Americans of the Great Basin, California, and the Potlatch culture of the Pacific Northwest. The last chapter deals with the relationship of the United States government to native peoples. This is a rather troublingly positive assessment of the government's activities on the American Indians' behalf, when the beneficial aspects of the relationship might be considered a definite minority of all that has transpired between the Native and Anglo populations. "Red Man's America" is still a very good book despite how dated it is, and may be read profitably as an overview of the subject. Indeed, despite the large number of books on the history of Native Americans, this remains one of the best on the subject.