The Inconvenient Indian Themes

King begins The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America with the disclosure that, as its full title suggests, the book will be an “account” rather than a history of Indian-White relations. King immediately establishes the distinctions and connections between fact and fiction, history, and story in the book’s opening chapter. While conventional wisdom might suggest that history is rigid, immutable, and synonymous with fact, King quickly dismisses this assumption, asserting…

One of the most persistent messages King reinforces in his account of Indian-White relations in North America is how Whites employed racist ideas and stereotypes to infantilize and dehumanize Indians. Racist ideology validated Whites’ unethical treatment of Native peoples and justified their systematic extermination of Native lives and cultural practices, as well as the legislation that legally sanctioned these unethical practices. The notion that it was acceptable to exterminate Native peoples by virtue of “natural…

In Chapter 8, “What Indians Want,” King states, “If Native people are to have a future that is of our own making, such a future will be predicated, in large part, on sovereignty.” The definition of sovereignty is “supreme and unrestricted authority,” though King contends that sovereignty, in practice, is rarely unrestricted or absolute. In the context of North American Indian-White relations, sovereignty refers to tribes’ or bands’ ability to conduct their affairs without the…