Description
The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity (series)
Named in honor of the pioneering Winnebago educational reformer and first known American Indian graduate of Yale College, Henry Roe Cloud (Class of 1910), this series showcases emergent and leading scholarship in the field of American Indian Studies. Drawing upon multiple disciplinary perspectives and organizing them around the place of Native Americans within the development of American and European modernity, this series emphasizes the shared, relational ties between Indigenous and Euro-American societies. It seeks to broaden current historic, literary, and cultural approaches to American Studies by foregrounding the fraught but generative sites of inquiry provided by the study of Indigenous communities.
Douglas Metoxen Kiel, a citizen of the Oneida Nation, is associate professor of history at Northwestern University. They live in Chicago, IL.
A history of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, from Revolutionary War allies to modern resurgence
How did the Oneida Nation of northeastern Wisconsin—stripped of nearly all its reservation lands by the early twentieth century—rise to become a powerful political and economic force in Native America and the present-day Midwest? Doug Kiel traces the journey of resurgence, adaptation, and nation rebuilding of the Oneida people, who navigated federal policies and socioeconomic shifts to chart their own future, transforming adversity into opportunity.
Kiel shows how Oneidas harnessed New Deal programs to advance their goals of self-determination; how urban migration, often seen as a marker of Indigenous displacement, became a tool of community empowerment; and how the Nation has reclaimed land and authority despite predictable backlash from neighboring towns. Drawing on extensive archival records, family photographs, and oral histories—including stories from his grandmother—Kiel highlights the everyday acts that have sustained the Oneida Nation across generations and offers vital insights into the broader fight for Indigenous nationhood in twenty-first-century America.
Illustrations & Content: 18 b-w illus.