Indians in the making
Subtitle: ethnic relations and Indian identities around Puget Sound
By: Alexandra Harmon.
Series: American crossroads ;; 3
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Berkeley
Language: eng
Number of pages: 393
Subjects: Indians of North America -- Washington (State) -- Puget Sound -- History.; Indians of North America -- Washington (State) -- Puget Sound -- Ethnic identity.; Indians of North America -- Government relations -- Washington (State) -- Puget Sound.; Frontier and pioneer life -- Washington (State) -- Puget Sound.; Puget Sound (Wash.) -- Ethnic relations.; Puget Sound (Wash.) -- Politics and government.
Description: In the Puget Sound region of Washington state, indigenous peoples and their descendants have a long history of interaction with settlers and their descendants. Indians in the Making offers the first comprehensive account of these meetings, from the land-based fur trade of the 1820s to the Indian fishing rights activism of the 1970s. Thoroughly researched and theoretically sophisticated, this history shows how notions of Indian identity - both Indian and non-Indian - changed as relations changed.

By chronicling such dialogues over 150 years, this study reveals that Indianness itself has a complex history. It is not a timeless essence preserved by some people and lost by others. Examining relations in various spheres of life - labor, public ceremony, marriage and kinship, politics and law - Harmon shows that Indians have continually redefined themselves.

Her focus on the negotiations that gave rise to modern Indian identity makes a powerful historical contribution to contemporary discussions of race and ethnicity in America.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 345-372) and index.