How do we tell a full and accurate history of the Indigenous peoples of this land? Most high school and college curricula ignore transformative events of 20th century American Indian history and treat these communities as relics of the past. Engaging in narrative storytelling and highlighting contemporary Indigenous history can address this problem in secondary and post-secondary institutions.

With David Treuer’s “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee,” to Ned Blackhawk’s “Rediscovering America,” and now Kathleen DuVal’s “Native Nations,” historians have recognized that the teaching of American history needs a “reset,” one that places Native nations -- their power and influence -- at the center of the story. Scholars will counter the prevailing narrative of the triumph of settler colonization in vanquishing Native nations. Indigenous states with sophisticated government structures and complex economies affected the Europeans in ways historians, and their students, need to understand. Indigenous peoples successfully pursued their own interests for centuries, from the Mohawks control of trade to Kiowas regulating the passage of white settlers across their territory. In the 19th century, U.S. military campaigns and settler violence took a toll on Indigenous peoples and, in many classrooms, that is where the teaching of American Indian history stops. Nearly 600 Native American sovereign nations exist in the United States today. But surveys show that students – indeed most Americans – believe Native people are a race lost to history.

From there, we will explore tools to help educators reflect the resistance and resilience of Native people in the face of cultural assimilation and annihilation during the 20th century. With increased Native visibility in contemporary media representations, such as the critically acclaimed television show Reservation Dogs, or the Martin Scorsese-helmed Killers of the Flower Moon, now is the time to closely examine where educators can be incorporating the Indigenous narratives and knowledge associated with American places, culture, and history and combating the invisibility of Indigenous presence on the Indigenous land base now known as America. Panel scholars will analyze how Native history has been depicted on screen in historical fiction and documentary films, and put those depictions into context of how historians are writing and thinking about Indigenous communities.

This session will also include a screening of the short documentary, "The 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz Was a Catalyst for Indigenous Activism" -- produced by Colleen Thurston for Retro Report, along with time for Q&A with the audience.