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Native Americans' Fight for Sovereignty, 1776-2025
by Paul C. Rosier
A sweeping history of Native Americans' fraught relationship with US citizenship and their efforts to protect tribal sovereignty.
Indigenous Citizens chronicles Native Americans' extraordinary resilience and resistance to colonialism, coercive assimilation programs such as Indian Boarding Schools, and white Americans' backlash against their treaty rights, from the American Revolution to the 2024 election. It highlights their efforts to both preserve tribal sovereignty and secure the civil rights accorded to other Americans, a dual citizenship codified in the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. Covering the arc of American history, Paul C. Rosier reveals Indigenous Americans' vision of a country that lives up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Through patriotic military service, activism, and political writings Native Americans championed their belief in a multicultural America that honored its legal obligations as it assumed international prominence in the twentieth century. Indigenous Citizens is unique in its breadth, its focus on the evolution of Native peoples' dual allegiances, and its coverage of twenty–first–century Indigenous issues.
"[An] ambitious history…Native sovereignty is alive and well in this engaging introduction to the politics of Indigenous dual citizenship." —Kirkus Reviews
"In current controversies over the Fourteenth Amendment, the topic of Indigenous citizenship has been taken up by people who know little about it. Paul C. Rosier, on the other hand, knows a lot about it. In Indigenous Citizens, he gives a timely, fascinating, and nuanced history of the dual citizenship of Native peoples. He reveals how citizenship has been a two-edged sword in both national and tribal politics." ―Richard White, author of Who Killed Jane Stanford
"In Paul C. Rosier's sweeping, brilliant analysis, the ideal of citizenship―contested, refused, demanded, and rejected―helps untangle much of the knotted-up history of the United States and the Native nations of this continent. Indigenous Citizens reveals that the multiple citizenships found in Indian Country offer a crucial pathway to a more pluralistic American democracy―and to a thriving sovereign future for Native peoples. An illuminating work of synthesis, it speaks to the present moment with both urgency and power." ―Philip J. Deloria, author of Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract
This information about Indigenous Citizens was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Paul C. Rosier is professor of history and director of the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University. Author of Serving Their Country, he received the American Indian National Book Award. He lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
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