In her book North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account, Alice Kehoe appears to give a straightforward account of the history of North America from the point of view of the Native Americans. The textbook covers the periods from when humans first inhabited the North American continent, some fifteen thousand years ago, and continues through to the present. Due to the immense size and diversity of the North American continent, the text is written so that each chapter covers a geographical region of the continent. The regions covered range from the rich lands of Mexico, through the eastern and western United States, through the forests of Canada, and concluding at the Arctic Circle. Each chapter covers the region’s history, people, culture, ways of life, and the circumstance that caused its cultural identity to collapse. The book culminates with chapters on the trials and tribulations that the Native American nations will face as they enter into the twenty-first century and a chapter on how anthropologists view American Indians. The author emphasizes several key points and occurrences in the history of the natives of North America and their impact on the

The text states that cultural areas exist because groups of peoples are inclined to be more similar to their immediate neighbors than they are to distant groups for two reasons. First, all peoples within a geographical region must adjust their diet, shelter, and other biologically demanded practices to the conditions of that region. Second, people borrow ideas from and adjust to adjacent social groups. Because climate, topography, soils, and the vegetation in an area change over time, cultures must either change of perish. Other factors that can influence populations are migrations, epidemics, and inventions.

The Mesoamericans also contributed the lunar and other calendars that were, and are still used by some native peoples today.

As a result of these enforced and broken treaties, modern Native Americans have suffered from many social problems that are were just being resolved in the later decades of the twentieth century. The Indians of North America have suffered from poverty, minimal education, and low paying jobs, as well as a deterioration of their native cultures and history as new generation grow up under the continued influence of Euro-American cultures. But there has been a slow recovery in the poverty levels of the Native Americans.

During the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of Native American businesses were created on the various Indian reservations, resulting in an increase of funds for the reservation’s community services, and some prosperity for its people. Also, during the 1980s there was an extraordinary explosion of legal gambling on the various Indian reservations of North America.

While her book discusses the heritages, languages, knowledge, technology, arts, and values that have been passed down through generations; it seems that Ms. Kehoe’s intention is to point out the injustices that have been perpetrated on the Native American population by the Europeans and Euro-Americans over the last five centuries. She also describes the devastation that was brought upon the Indian populations by the early European settlers of American and Mexico. She lists several examples of diseases decimating tribes, and over hunting by the

In another example, during the Indian relocation during the Dawes Act, reservations were broken up into individual allotments of 160 acres per enrolled tribal member, and the excess acreage sold off. Since no provisions were made for later generations, this not only reduced the amount of available land to the Indians, but would eventually lead to overcrowded conditions.

I feel that the advances in agriculture, architecture, science, and complex cultures that were obtained by the Mexican Nations crowned a significant period in the history of the North American Indians. Their contributions of culture, science, and art have had a great impact on the way modern cultures look upon the ancient world.

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