Understanding Tolowa Histories Western Hegemonies and Native American Responses

"Understanding Tolowa Histories" develops a multi-leveled historical inquiry of the Native Tolowa of Northwestern California. The Tolowa were displaced and nearly destroyed in the nineteenth century. Since then, they have struggled to reclaim their collective identity and language and are now re-emerging as a cultural and political group.

Presenting a wide-ranging analysis of ethnographic, linguistic and historical materials, James Collins explores the linguistic and political dynamics of place-claiming and expropriation as well as the relation between otherness and subjugation. He shows the role of such discourse in the ongoing controversies about tradition and identity in Native and non-Native America and establishes the place of the Tolowa and Native California in the larger pattern of US/Indian history.

Developing a multi-leveled historical inquiry of the Native Tolowa of the US, James Collins explores the linguistic and political dynamics of place-claiming and expropriation as well as the relation between otherness and subjugation.

1. Tolowa Histories: Inclusions and Exclusions in Making a People and a Past 2. Tolowa De-Termination: Histories after the Cataclysm, 1850-1900 3. Tolowa De-Termination: Conscripts of Western Civilization, 1910-1965 4. Rights, Place Claims, and Power: A Western Legacy 5. Changing Conditions of Place and Identity in Native North America 6. Discourse of Place and Expropriation 7. A Modern Politics of Place and Identity Conclusion: Contested Places, Divided Subjects

James Collins is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany.