Facing East From Indian Country Summary

Have you ever imagined life as a Native American in the time period of the Columbian Exchange? Did life change drastically for thousands of people? What events went on as more and more new things were exposed into the lives of the Native Americans? Daniel K. Richter turns the gaze of early American history around and forces the reader to consider stories of North America during the period of European settlement rather than just the European colonization of North America in his novel, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. Richter, being an American Historian focuses both his research and teaching on colonial North America and on Native American history dating back before 1800. Through Richter’s writing he reintegrated Indians into the history of North America by expressing their side of the event and/or time in history as well as the side of the first-hand settlers in America. Richter states in the novel, “Perhaps the strangest lesson of all was that in the new nation Whites were the ones entitled to be called “Americans.” Indians bizarrely became something else” (p.2). Through the detailed writing in the novel it is not possible to dismiss the formative role of the Native Americans in the history of colonial and early America.
Facing East provides snapshots into Native American
For example, when discussing Pontiac and his war in the Ohio valley, Richter tells of the various motivations Pontiac had in staging his war (p.193-201). Also, Richter does a worthy job of setting up the following individual stories of violence between the white invaders and Native Americans by explaining the importance of their customs, such as reciprocal gift giving, in which Richter states, “The chiefs are generally the poorest among them, for instead of receiving anything… these Indian chiefs are made to give to the populace”