Placing Native Americans centre-stage, and drawing not only on historical sources but also on ethnography, archaeology, Indian oral tradition, and research in contemporary Native American communities, this book sets out to recover their experience and make it accessible to a non-Indian audience. The text charts the course of the collision between indigenous cultures and European invaders, from the first English settlements on the Atlantic coast to the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890. At the same time, it explains how Europeans justified a process that reduced the Native American population from an estimated 7-10 million to less than 250,000 in four centuries. In his conclusion, the author shows how these same ideas have continued to underpin government policy towards native people in the 20th century and to distort popular perceptions of the Indian.