American Anthropologist
"Thankfully, this is not your parents’ book on the history of California."
The Nation
The stories Atkins and Bauer gather in this survey are about the Natives themselves, offering a compassionate reading of a people who have, even in some of the best revisionist studies, remained the 'other' on the periphery. The details and voices of California Indians' lives that the authors amplify from oral histories, primary documents, and secondary sources draw out the drama and recast the history of the 31st state from the perspectives of its First Peoples.”
CounterPunch
"Akins and Bauer have written a classic. . . . A relocation of the region’s indigenous peoples from a history based on their erasure to a history based on their preeminence."
Society for US Intellectual History
"This book is a welcome contribution to the growing field of California Indian Studies."
California History
"It will be very good to keep this book close at hand and to insist that our students do the same. It is timely, it is a significant accomplishment, and it is welcome."
Civil Eats
"Combines lyrical storytelling with academic narration to foreground Indigenous oral stories. . . . The book’s well-researched micro-histories coalesce to create a necessary rewriting of Californian history."
CHOICE
"This richly sourced work. . . . is a refreshing read, offering a much-needed perspective of California history."
Boston Globe
"In what seems an overdue departure from standard histories, Akins and Bauer’s comprehensive account places indigenous people at the heart of California’s story."
Hispanic American Historical Review
"Damon Akins and William Bauer unveil a fascinating narrative about California Indians that breaks free from conventional boundaries of time and space. . . . Anyone interested in the history of Indigenous peoples will wish to read and enjoy it."
Pacific Historical Review
"This well-written, accessible book reconceives California as Indigeneous land…the text itself is a powerful illustration of the ongoing challenges of colonialism and the Indigeneous survival of its many formations."
American Historical Review
"We Are the Land is an excellent book. . . . a history of California’s Indigenous people in action, shaping places that, in turn, shape them. They made this history."
Geography Realm
"This is a history of personal stories. Many make for painful reading. All are to the point."
Sierra Magazine
"We Are the Land is an astonishing work of scholarship, storytelling, and solidarity. . . . It will set the standard for the many other stories of the People waiting to be told."
Book Riot
"We Are the Land foregrounds Indigeneity in California — a state in which genocidal narratives operate to complete the work of actual genocide in effectively scrubbing any Native American presence from the story of California. The book offers a resounding refusal of this erasure, instead offering a comprehensive history of Native California that encompasses past and present to underscore the continual presence and centrality of Indigenous peoples throughout settler colonization, missionization, statehood, and the present."
From the Publisher
"We Are the Land is an excellent book. . . . a history of California's Indigenous people in action, shaping places that, in turn, shape them. They made this history."-- "American Historical Review"
"This book is a welcome contribution to the growing field of California Indian Studies."-- "Society for US Intellectual History"
"Thankfully, this is not your parents' book on the history of California."-- "American Anthropologist"
"We Are the Land foregrounds Indigeneity in California -- a state in which genocidal narratives operate to complete the work of actual genocide in effectively scrubbing any Native American presence from the story of California. The book offers a resounding refusal of this erasure, instead offering a comprehensive history of Native California that encompasses past and present to underscore the continual presence and centrality of Indigenous peoples throughout settler colonization, missionization, statehood, and the present."-- "Book Riot"
"It will be very good to keep this book close at hand and to insist that our students do the same. It is timely, it is a significant accomplishment, and it is welcome."-- "California History"
"This well-written, accessible book reconceives California as Indigeneous land...the text itself is a powerful illustration of the ongoing challenges of colonialism and the Indigeneous survival of its many formations."-- "Pacific Historical Review"
"Damon Akins and William Bauer unveil a fascinating narrative about California Indians that breaks free from conventional boundaries of time and space. . . . Anyone interested in the history of Indigenous peoples will wish to read and enjoy it."-- "Hispanic American Historical Review"
"The stories Atkins and Bauer gather in this survey are about the Natives themselves, offering a compassionate reading of a people who have, even in some of the best revisionist studies, remained the 'other' on the periphery. The details and voices of California Indians' lives that the authors amplify from oral histories, primary documents, and secondary sources draw out the drama and recast the history of the 31st state from the perspectives of its First Peoples."
-- "The Nation"
"This richly sourced work. . . . is a refreshing read, offering a much-needed perspective of California history."-- "CHOICE"
"We Are the Land is an astonishing work of scholarship, storytelling, and solidarity. . . . It will set the standard for the many other stories of the People waiting to be told."-- "Sierra Magazine"
"A Native American rejoinder to Richard White and Jesse Amble White's California Exposures. . . . [And] a welcome contribution to Native studies and the rich literature of California's first peoples." -- "Kirkus Reviews"
"Akins and Bauer have written a classic. . . . A relocation of the region's indigenous peoples from a history based on their erasure to a history based on their preeminence."-- "CounterPunch"
"Combines lyrical storytelling with academic narration to foreground Indigenous oral stories. . . . The book's well-researched micro-histories coalesce to create a necessary rewriting of Californian history."-- "Civil Eats"
"In what seems an overdue departure from standard histories, Akins and Bauer's comprehensive account places indigenous people at the heart of California's story."-- "Boston Globe"
"This is a history of personal stories. Many make for painful reading. All are to the point."-- "Geography Realm"
Kirkus Reviews
2020-11-05
A thoughtful study of California as seen through the eyes of Indigenous people and their descendants.
“California is both a place and an idea. As a place, California has always been and remains Indigenous land, and Indigenous People are central to the history and future of the place.” So write historians Akins and Bauer, who consider the complex story of the dozens of Native nations and tribes that were once central to the place, then seemingly disappeared with the arrival of outsiders from Mexico and all over the world. Later, as “California Indians,” they reappeared in order to claim rightful ownership of lands that, funded by casino revenues, they helped restore, reviving their languages and traditions at the same time. For example, Chumash people once inhabited the coastal lands from Malibu up to the area around Paso Robles and out into the Channel Islands; after being driven out, they have reclaimed some of their former territory. In the East Bay, much of what archaeologists call the West Berkeley Shellmound has been covered up by shops and homes, but Ohlone people are pushing to preserve the rest as a sacred site, “something that should be worth saving,” as one leader puts it. Examining historical encounters with newcomers brought north and west along river routes and ancient trails, Akins and Bauer explore Indigenous conceptions of place and the geographical relations among neighboring peoples, making a kind of Native American rejoinder to Richard White and Jesse Amble White’s California Exposures. Especially in a time of climate change and social upheaval, all people stand to learn about how to live in a place by studying ways both ancient and modern, the latter including “economic and political efforts to maintain connections to the land…[that] rested on the efforts that began in the 1870s, as California Indian People, communities, and nations recovered from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and slavery.”
A welcome contribution to Native studies and the rich literature of California’s first peoples.
