Laurie Arnold: Bartering with the Bones of Their Dead

The University of Washington Press is doing something innovative that I suspect will soon become standard practice. For their new books they are creating short, simple promotional videos. They even have a YouTube channel.

The most interesting of the current offerings is this book by Laurie Arnold, Bartering with the Bones of Their Dead. Arnold explores the contentious debate among Colville tribal members about whether to accept federal termination of the Colville Confederated Tribes. Termination in this case refers to negotiated end of federal recognition in the mid-twentieth century--tribal governments would disband, Indians would lose any special status, and would presumably assimilate and vanish into the population as a whole. Usually there was a promise of individual cash payments and allotments of land as compensation, along with federal assistance to relocate in an urban area and locate a job there. Termination went wrong almost immediately, and most tribes fiercely resisted the practice. The Colvilles were almost unique among tribes in soliciting federal termination--a stance that was controversial not only within the tribes but across Indian country. Arnold is herself a member of the Colville Tribes. Here she is describing her book: