A sweeping history of Native Americans’ fraught relationship with US citizenship and their efforts to protect tribal sovereignty.

Indigenous Citizens chronicles Native Americans’ extraordinary resilience and resistance to colonialism, coercive assimilation programs such as Indian Boarding Schools, and white Americans’ backlash against their treaty rights, from the American Revolution to the 2024 election. It highlights their efforts to both preserve tribal sovereignty and secure the civil rights accorded to other Americans, a dual citizenship codified in the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. Covering the arc of American history, Paul C. Rosier reveals Indigenous Americans’ vision of a country that lives up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Through patriotic military service, activism, and political writings Native Americans championed their belief in a multicultural America that honored its legal obligations as it assumed international prominence in the twentieth century. Indigenous Citizens is unique in its breadth, its focus on the evolution of Native peoples’ dual allegiances, and its coverage of twenty–first–century Indigenous issues.

About the Author: Paul C. Rosier is professor of history and director of the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University. Author of Serving Their Country, he received the American Indian National Book Award. He lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.