Kiowa Humanity and the Invasion of the State illuminates the ways in which Kiowas on the southern plains dealt with the U.S. government’s efforts to control them after they were forced onto a reservation by an 1867 treaty. The overarching effects of colonial domination resembled those suffered by other Native groups at the time—a considerable loss of land and population decline, as well as a continual erosion of the Kiowas’ political, cultural, economic, and religious sovereignty and traditions. Although readily acknowledging these far-reaching consequences, Jacki Thompson Rand sees the root impact of colonialism and the concomitant Kiowa responses as centered less on policy disputes than on the disruptions to their daily life and to their humanity. Colonialism attacked the Kiowas on the most human, everyday level—through starvation, outbreaks of smallpox, emotional disorientation, and continual difficulties in securing clothing and shelter, and the Kiowas’ responses and  counterassertions of sovereignty thus tended to focus on efforts to feed their people, sustain the physical community, and preserve psychic equilibrium.

 

Offering a fresh, original view of Native responses to colonialism, this study demonstrates amply that Native struggles against the encroachment of the state go well beyond armed resistance and political strategizing. Rand shows that the Native response was born of everyday survival and the yearning for well-being and community

Jacki Thompson Rand is Choctaw and an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa.

"Rand has written a book that explores the complications and nuances of Native history, one that should be used by scholars, journalists, and museum curators in better integrating American Indians into that national consciousness and academic discourse."—Jill Norgren, American Historical Review

"Rand's account of Kiowa creativity under life-threatening conditions offers a compelling synthesis of agency and oppression, one that asks readers to take genocide seriously while affirming Kiowa—and Native—humanity."—Jeffrey Ostler, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This is a well-written and genuinely intriguing story, and Rand weaves together a concise portrait of federal Indian policy towards the Kiowas during the nineteenth century. Her reengagement of Jenning's conquest model of Indian history should provoke ample discussion and engage new debates in the field."—Nathan Wilson, Great Plains Quarterly