Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest For North America, by Pekka Hamalainen

This book is, without exaggeration, perhaps one of the worst books on history I have ever read. There are several reasons for this, but they boil down to a few essential flaws that make it so that the author rarely even accidentally stumbles on the truth, and when he does rarely do so, he ends up shaking the dust off of his shoes and returning to peddling politically correct lies immediately afterwards. One of the main problems here is that the author is simply not in command of this work. He takes his research for his previous books on the Commanche (see previous review) and the Lakota and basically tries to reverse all of the stereotypes and conclusions that one gets from old-fashioned books about American (and Canadian) settlement. He lacks a firm grounding on chronology or demography, which makes the timelines the author mentions convoluted and often lacking in realism. The author also comes at this book with the approach that whatever definitions of victory or domination work best for the native tribes, that is the definition that the author uses. The mere survival of hundreds of thousands of tribes on marginal land, which could likely be taken away if it was needed for public purposes with a forced treaty by either the American or Canadian governments is viewed as a sign of continued native domination. Defeats in wars that do not lead to the destruction or eradication of tribes are viewed as successful delaying actions of European (and settler) conquest. Efforts by colonial regimes and their successors to make peace are viewed by the author as recognition of overwhelming native power and signs of collapse among colonial ventures. The book is so biased that it cannot be taken seriously unless one is using this book to support illegitimate propaganda purposes.

If I had to compare this author to anyone when it came to his discussion of endless and fictitious native “victories” in diplomacy and war, it would be to the sort of lying totalitarian propaganda that talked about endless victories in a war where the battlefields kept on getting close and closer to the regime’s capital. “We are luring them in, and will annihilate them,” says the false historian, all the while the supposed invincible natives are being decimated (or worse) by diseases and the effects of forced migrations. Of course, the author views these forced migrations as unjust and bloody colonial conflicts as being wasteful but sees native survival as victory, which means that by the author’s scorecard, only the extermination of a tribe would be a defeat. By that definition, I think the colonists won sufficiently to demonstrate that at some point–likely in the 1800s–the supposed indigenous continent became a continent of European-Americans and others who were drawn to reside in the societies that they had made. Naturally, it is at this point where the author loses interest in his narrative. He only wishes to talk about native tribes as they reach their peak power, in his eyes. Once they face their inevitable destruction or pacification at the hand of overwhelming technological and demographic opposition on the part of settler colonists, the author tosses them aside like a propagandist tosses aside inconvenient truths or an immature child tosses away a discarded toy.

This book has more than 450 pages of content and is divided into eight parts and almost 30 chapters. The author begins with an introduction that discusses the myth of colonial America, which ought to indicate to the reader that he intends on creating a countermyth of even less factual value than the myth he seeks to deconstruct. The first part of the book exaggerates the length of time natives were in North America (he labels it, falsely, as 70,000 years), discussing native myths of creation (1), North America as a supposedly egalitarian continent (2), and the supposed blind conquests of the early Spanish (3). The author then discusses a supposed long sixteenth century by looking at the view of North America as an empty land (4), the Powhatan empire (5), the early wars of the British colonists (6), and the Pequot War (7). The author then discusses the contest for the area just west of the Appalachians, with chapters on the rise of the Iroquois (8), various enemies and animosities (9), and the power of weakness (10). The author discusses the supposed indigenous backlash of the late 1600s with chapters on the supposed immaturity of the English (11), the challenge of King Philips War (12), the complex nature of Bacon’s rebellion in Virginia (13), and the Pueblo Rebellion in New Mexico (14). The author then discusses the early 17000s with a discussion of a supposed stalemate in the northern part of North America during a half-century of wars between France and England (and sometimes others as well) (15), efforts at insulting Europeans (16), as well as a discussion of the Comanche Rancherias in Texas (17). The next part of the book then discusses the struggle over the heart of the continent (the Midwest) in the latter half of the 1700s, with chapters on horses (18), the conquest of French North America by the English (19), Pontiac’s rebellion (20), the American Revolution (21), and its aftermath (22). The author then discusses the period after the American Revolution up to the early 19th century with chapters on America’s early Indian Wars (23), the promises of the West (24), and more anti-white propaganda (25). The last few chapters of this book end with a discussion on removal (26), the Comanche (27), and the Lakota (28), after which the book ends with an epilogue about tribal survival, acknowledgements, notes, illustration credits, and an index.