Chitto Harjo: Native Patriotism and the Medicine Way [Hardcover]

How a Mvskoke traditionalist leader forged a movement to resist the division of tribal lands and keep his people on the everlasting Medicine Way

Chitto Harjo (Crazy Snake) had several namesWilson Jones, Bill Jones, Bill Harjo, Bill Snakeand people called him many things: troublemaker, rebellion leader, uncivilized Indian, martyr, murderer. Many called him crazy for fighting against progress and for his commitment to traditions that they believed were outdated and dying out. Yet in the eyes of many Mvskokes and traditionalists of other nations, he was a hero, a defender of the old ways, a Native patriot, and a leader of the Medicine Way.

These traditionalists believed in the Mvskoke worldview, which has inspired the Mvskokes and other Southeastern peoples to carry on their traditions as they have done for hundreds of years. In this engaging account, historian Donald L. Fixico tells the story of the Mvskoke people and their fight for survival and unity amid enduring tensions between white civilization and traditional culture. A personal story that begins with Fixico attending a Green Corn Ceremony with his father and young son, this engrossing narrative integrates traditional knowledge with historical method to present an Indigenous perspective on Mvskoke and Native American history.

“A strong contribution to the literature of Indigenous resistance.”—Kirkus Reviews

Concise and powerful. . . . Fixico gathers archival traces and oral histories into a layered, cohesive history [that is] both careful and vibrantly alive, and it invites us to listen differently and closelyto the voices of the past, to the knowledge systems that sustained them, and to our responsibilities as historians who carry these stories forward.Angela Parker,American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Succeeds admirably. . . . Not only is the book captivating, its also exceptionally taut. In 170 pages of text, l¨