68 pages • 2-hour read
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
PROLOGUE-CHAPTER 2
Reading Check
1. What word did King’s wife and son object to his using in the book’s subtitle?
2. Where is the commemorative plaque that King describes?
3. What Métis rebellion leader does King discuss?
4. According to King, how many racial categories did 19th-century European and European-descended people believe in?
5. What 1915 Fraser sculpture does King discuss?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why does King use the term “Indian” to refer to the Indigenous peoples of North America?
2. What is King’s rhetorical purpose in describing the plaque commemorating the supposed massacre?
3. What clarification does King provide about John Smith and Pocahontas?
4. What distinction does King make between the attitudes of explorers and colonists toward Indigenous people?
5. What criticism does King level against the film industry?
Paired Resource
“The End of the Trail as an American Icon” and “End of the Trail, Then and Now”
- These two discussions of the Fraser sculpture include a 2-minute video with brief textual commentary from The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and an interview with Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson. Each offers counterpoints to King’s perspective.
- How do these two sources offer additional ways of looking at the Fraser sculpture? Do their contrasting perspectives conflict with King’s ideas? How does your knowledge of the sources’ cultural backgrounds impact your reception of their ideas?
“Historical Foundations of Race”
- This Smithsonian article explores the historical development of the concept of race.
- This resource relates to the theme of The Construction of Race.
- What stages in the development of the idea of race does this article identify? How does it support King’s commentary on race and racism?
CHAPTERS 3-4
Reading Check
1. What three types of Indigenous peoples does King propose to discuss?
2. What does King say real-life, contemporary Indigenous peoples often have to do in order to be accepted as “authentic”?
3. What do the early 1800s Supreme Court cases Johnson v. McIntosh, Cherokee v. Georgia, and Worcester v. Georgia have in common?
4. What act was signed into law by President Jackson in 1830?
5. What does King call “the largest massacre of Native people in North American history”? (Chapter 4)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does King define the term “simulacrum”?
2. What critique does King offer regarding how Indigenous people are often depicted in order to appeal to white people?
3. How does the American government’s legal classification scheme eradicate Indigenous identity?
4. How did American governmental attitudes toward Indigenous peoples shift at the beginning of the 19th century?
5. What excuse did the Canadian government make for the forced relocation of Indigenous peoples?
Paired Resource
- This journal article discusses the simulacrum of the Western frontier in both Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and in the contemporary television series Westworld. Please note that due to its complexity, this article is most suitable for AP or college-level readers.
- This resource relates to the themes of The Construction of Race and The Role of Land in Indigenous -White Conflicts.
- In what sense is the popular conception of the Western frontier a simulacrum? How does this simulacrum relate to King’s discussions of race, Indigenous identity, and the displacement of Indigenous peoples?
“A Looming Court Case Threatens Native Sovereignty”
- This article discusses ongoing threats to Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty in the United States.
- This resource relates to the theme of The Fragility of Indigenous Peoples’ Sovereignty.
- What specific examples does the article give of US governmental actions that threaten tribal sovereignty? How does this relate to King’s discussion of the shift in US governmental attitudes toward Indigenous peoples in the 1800s? Which aspects of this article remind you of the Canadian government’s reasoning for its forced relocations of Tribal nations?
CHAPTERS 5-7
Reading Check
1. What group of people does King identify as early practitioners of assimilation?
2. What assimilationist institutions did Richard Pratt advocate for?
3. What governmental act does King say caused the tensions over land to “flare up again”? (Chapter 6)
4. In the late 1800s, what reward was offered to Indigenous people who agreed to adopt the European practice of private land ownership?
5. What is the Canadian legal term for Indigenous Americans who are recognized as such by the government?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What was Richard Pratt’s belief about how environment shaped Indigenous children’s development?
2. What was the famous protest at Alcatraz about?
3. How did the general public’s reaction to the standoff at Wounded Knee differ from its reaction to the occupation of Alcatraz?
4. What is King’s rhetorical purpose in saying that he should forget about the injustices of the past?
5. What personal anecdote does King offer to illustrate his point that racism against Indigenous peoples continues in the present day?
Paired Resource
“Schoolhouse Rock - Elbow Room- Manifest Destiny”
- This 3-minute video, which played on television in the 1970s, was part of an educational initiative aimed at children.
- This resource relates to the theme of The Role of Land in Indigenous-White Conflicts.
- This video played frequently in the breaks during children’s programming in the US in the 1970s. How does it portray the Westward movement of non-Indigenous peoples? How does it portray the concerns of tribal nations and the humanity of tribal peoples? What historical facts does it erase or obscure? What arguments can you see for and against making a children’s cartoon about the idea of “Manifest Destiny”?
- This poem by Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, and Duckwater Shoshone poet Tanaya Winder decries the impact of land loss and colonialism on her people. A 4-minute video of Winder performing this poem can be found here.
- This resource relates to the theme of The Role of Land in Indigenous-White Conflicts.
- What historical events and trends that King identifies in his book does Winder reference either directly or through allusion in this poem? How would you compare the emotional appeal of Winder’s piece versus King’s? How would you compare the logical appeal of the two pieces? How do Winder’s poem and King’s book serve both similar and different purposes?
CHAPTERS 8-10
Reading Check
1. What term does King use to describe current governmental attempts to “abrogate treaties, eliminate federal guarantees, divide First Nations land into fee-simple blocks, and allow Native people to participate freely in the economic markets that Western capitalism has created”? (Chapter 8)
2. What does King say white people want from their relationship with Indigenous peoples?
3. For what did the Canadian government not want to take responsibility cleaning up from Ipperwash, the land that rightly belongs to the Stoney Point Ojibway?
4. How is land deeded in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act?
5. What aspect of Inuit culture does King see as most critically endangered?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does King enumerate the rights of sovereignty for tribal peoples?
2. What concern does King express about the way some tribal governments approach tribal enrollment?
3. How does King contrast the white and Indigenous cultural perspectives on land?
4. How does King’s example of the Black Hills support his contention about broken treaties?
5. What does King say the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act demonstrate?
Recommended Next Reads
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- This account of the history of the US offers insight into Indigenous peoples’ perspectives on the events so often told from a colonial perspective.
- Shared themes include The Construction of Race, The Role of Land in Indigenous-White Conflicts, and The Fragility of Indigenous Peoples’ Sovereignty.
- Shared topics include North American history, colonialism, Indigenous perspectives, broken treaties, and land rights.
- An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States on SuperSummary
Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec
- In this nonfiction analysis of the historical relationship between Indigenous peoples and colonial groups, Anishinaabe writer Krawec calls for a way forward that honors Indigenous knowledge and perspectives, particularly the understanding that we are all related.
- Shared themes include The Construction of Race, The Role of Land in Indigenous-White Conflicts, and The Fragility of Indigenous Peoples’ Sovereignty.
- Shared topics include North American history, colonialism, Indigenous perspectives, broken treaties, and land rights.
Reading Questions Answer Key
PROLOGUE-CHAPTER 2
Reading Check
1. “History” (Prologue)
2. Alamo, Indiana (Chapter 1)
3. Louis Riel (Chapter 1)
4. Five (Chapter 2)
5. The End of the Trail (Chapter 2)
Short Answer
1. King discusses how those with Indigenous ancestry do not all agree on a single term to use to refer to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and there are differences in usage between Canada and the United States, so King felt that the term “Indian” would be the best ”default” choice. (Prologue)
2. He is making the point that the “victors” write history, and sometimes this means entirely making up stories that portray the losing side as the aggressor. In this instance, Indigenous people are being portrayed as the perpetrators of massacres, when in reality white people were responsible for far larger and more frequent incidences of this kind of violence. (Chapter 1)
3. The historical timeline makes it likely that Smith made up the story about Pocahontas and that in reality he never even met her. (Chapter 1)
4. King explains that explorers relied on the help of Indigenous people and generally had a positive view of them. By contrast, colonists generally viewed Indigenous peoples negatively, using words like “savage” to refer to them and believing it important to try to convert them to the European way of life. (Chapter 2)
5. Movies continue to perpetuate stereotyped, outdated, and inaccurate views of Indigenous peoples and generally focus on the past rather than telling the stories of modern Indigenous people. (Chapter 2)
CHAPTERS 3-4
Reading Check
1. “Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians” (Chapter 3)
2. Dress like “Dead Indians” (Chapter 3)
3. They limited Indigenous peoples’ rights. (Chapter 4)
4. The Indian Removal Act (Chapter 4)
5. The Trail of Tears (Chapter 4)
Short Answer
1. King defines “simulacrum” as an assemblage of “cultural debris,” both authentic and manufactured, that comes to represent “something that never existed.” (Chapter 3)
2. King makes the point that “Dead Indians” are the most appealing to white audiences, and that images of a stereotyped Indigenous peoples’ past, assembled from bits and pieces of the white imagination more than from actual history, are used to construct the image of the “Dead Indian.” (Chapter 3)
3. Only about 40% of living Indigenous people are legally identified as “Indians” because of the complex historical factors regarding who is legally classified by that term. (Chapter 3)
4. While colonial governments had treated Indigenous groups as sovereign and independent nations, at the beginning of the 19th century the American government shifted toward treating Indigenous peoples as an inconvenience to be pushed West. Around this time, the government changed Indigenous peoples’ status to that of children, making them wards of the state. (Chapter 4)
5. They claimed that these removals were for the good of the Indigenous peoples, who they claimed had too much trouble adjusting to a so-called modern way of life. (Chapter 4)
CHAPTERS 5-7
Reading Check
1. Christian missionaries (Chapter 5)
2. Residential schools (Chapter 5)
3. The 1887 General Allotment Act/ the Dawes Act (Chapter 6)
4. US citizenship (Chapter 6)
5. Status Indians (Chapter 7)
Short Answer
1. Richard Pratt was an environmental determinist, believing that people’s characters were entirely shaped by their childhood environments. In the specific case of Indigenous children, he believed that they had a “primitive” culture at home and that the only way to save them from this was to put them in a Eurocentric environment and eradicate their Indigenous identity. (Chapter 5)
2. The protesters wanted to draw attention to the continuing loss of Indigenous land. Since Alcatraz was a disused federal property, they sought to have it turned over to Indigenous control. (Chapter 6)
3. The general public did not react as favorably to AIM’s actions at Wounded Knee as it had to the earlier takeover of Alcatraz, perhaps because AIM’s tactics were considered more “militant.” (Chapter 6)
4. King does not really believe that he should forget about the injustices of the past. Rather, he is ironically reacting against this idea because he believes these injustices are ongoing. (Chapter 7)
5. When King and his family moved into a new neighborhood, he found a realtor’s flier in his mailbox warning the neighbors that an Indigenous family was moving in and implying that this would lower property values. (Chapter 7)
CHAPTERS 8-10
Reading Check
1. Neo-termination (Chapter 8)
2. Land (Chapter 9)
3. Military debris (Chapter 9)
4. It is deeded in the fee-simple format. (Chapter 10)
5. Language/Inuktitut (Chapter 10)
Short Answer
1. For Indigenous peoples, King indicates that “sovereignty” means the rights to “levy taxes, set the criteria for citizenship, control trade, and negotiate agreements and treaties.” (Chapter 8)
2. He is concerned that attempts to limit tribal enrollment in order to protect tribal resources disenfranchises people with legitimate claims to tribal identity. (Chapter 8)
3. King says that white people see land as a commodity, whereas Indigenous peoples see it as the source of their culture, identity, and history. (Chapter 9)
4. The Lakota have treaty rights to the Black Hills, but the US government allowed this treaty to be broken when gold was discovered in this area. (Chapter 9)
5. These land agreements, according to King, demonstrate that positive changes are possible in the way federal governments relate to tribal nations, because both agreements are good-faith efforts to equitably divide land between tribal and non-tribal peoples. (Chapter 10)
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