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Montana
Blackfeet

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Montana
1911: A Professor and His Wife Among the Blackfeet
This is the complete text diary kept by Mrs W M Uhlenbeck-Melchoir
while accompanying her husband, the Dutch anthropologist/linguist,
Dr C C Uhlenbeck, during his fieldwork on the Blackfeet Reservation
in Montana in the summer of 1911. Here eyewitness account of
their three-month stay gives the reader a fascinating insight
into the world of the Blackfeet. The first edition ever to be
translated into English, this book is complete with notes, introductions,
and supplementary materials. The book includes essays on Blackfeet
mythology and folklore that detail life before the reservation
period and a biographical sketch of the Uhlenbecks, featuring
aspects of C C Uhlenbeck's career as a linguist and scholar,
as well as numerous photographs from the era.
Rebirth
of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912-1954
Drawing on interviews, democratic theory, and extensive archival
research, Paul C. Rosier tells the story of the Blackfeet Nation
during the first half of the twentieth century. At the turn
of the century, the Blackfeet, like many Native groups, were
suffering from the cultural and economic effects of land loss,
poverty, forced education at federal boarding schools, and overt
political control by the federal government. By mid-century,
however, the Blackfeet Nation had undergone a rapid and complex
political and economic transformation. The Blackfeet embraced
and largely benefited from the Indian Reorganization Act of
1934, which promoted tribal sovereignty and administration and
halted land loss. The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council became
a powerful force both on and off the reservation, and a class
system emerged, consisting of wealthy Blackfeet ranchers and
oil lessees, the very poor, and a middle class whose fortunes
were tied to government and tribal credit programs for livestock,
farm, and rehabilitation loans. How and why did these changes
happen? Focusing on the internal political, economic, and ethnic
forces shaping the Blackfeet Nation - and incorporating Blackfeet
voices throughout - Rosier shows how these transformations were
not imposed on the Blackfeet but were the result of their continuing
efforts to create a community of their own making and to reorganize
relations with outsiders on their own terms. In particular,
Rosier questions prevailing assumptions about the Indian Reorganization
Act and its effects on tribal sovereignty. He argues that the
IRA provided useful tools for democratic political reform and
for enhancing tribal sovereignty during the "termination"
period of the 1950s. This book illuminates two key periods in
modern Indian-white relations and broadens our understanding
of the meaning of democracy in America. Paul C. Rosier is an
adjunct professor of history at Villanova University.
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