Ned Blackhawk – AWBA Winner in Nonfiction

Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) is the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. He is the 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner in nonfiction for his book The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. Blackhawk will be featured at The City Club on Friday, September 27 at 11:30 a.m. as part of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards events.

Excerpt from The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

When and where does the story of America start, and who constitutes its central cast? What are the main subjects, or acts, of this national drama? Are the English colonies the site of the origins of America? Did those who proclaimed themselves "We, the People" ever intend to relinquish their exclusive control? What were the legacies of the expansion of the United States across Indigenous homelands in the nineteenth century? How have Native nations responded to the overwhelming presence of federal power within their everyday lives?

Scholars have worked for generations to answer these questions, and starting in the late twentieth century, scholarly as well as tribal projects began to expose a rich historical universe that had been previously neglected. From the Makah Cultural and Research Center in Neah Bay, Washington, to the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Mashantucket, Connecticut, for example, nearly two hundred tribal museums and cultural centers now articulate the histories of these respective Native communities. New source materials—oral traditions, ethnographies, Indigenous languages, and the archival records from multiple empires—have also helped create new historical and literary studies.

Native Americans have now emerged from the shadows of historical neglect in their full complexity, living in varied societies, speaking centuries-old Indigenous languages, and governing often vast territories. Many continue to live in the homes of their ancestors and tend gardens that predate European arrival, such as the twenty-one Pueblo Indian nations of Arizona and New Mexico, who maintain North America's oldest continuously inhabited communities.

This rediscovery of American history continues to swell. Each year new courses, publications, and partnerships between tribal communities and non-tribal institutions continue to shape the practices of researchers, teachers, tribal members, and students of all ages who yearn for more accurate, multiracial histories. Tribal governments have grown in their size and capacities, providing the clearest examples in American politics of the inherent sovereignty of tribal communities. Some, like the Navajo Nation, govern hundreds of thousands of citizens across millions of acres. Others employ thousands of Native and non-Native workers in their industries and economies. These nations reside within the borders of the United States, where they maintain autonomy, sovereignty, and power in concert with the federal government.

If our schools and university classrooms are to remain vital civic institutions, we must create richer and more truthful accounts of the American Republic's origins, expansion, and current form. Studying and teaching America's Indigenous truths reveal anew the varied meanings of America.


Excerpted from The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, published by Yale University Press. Copyright © 2023 by Ned Blackhawk. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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