Indigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the Present by Greg Olson

The history of Indigenous people in present-day Missouri is far more nuanced, complex, and vibrant than the often-told tragic stories of conflict with white settlers and forced Indian removal would lead us to believe. In this path-breaking narrative, Greg Olson presents the Show Me State’s Indigenous past as one span­ning twelve millennia of Native presence, resilience, and evolu­tion. While previous Missouri histories have tended to include Indigenous people only during periods when they constituted a threat to the state’s white settlement, Olson shows us the con­tinuous presence of Native people that includes the present day.

Paperback | 448 pages