A necessary reckoning with America's troubled history of injustice to Indigenous people After One Hundred Winters confronts the harsh truth that the United States was founded on the violent dispossession of Indigenous people and asks what reconciliation might mean in light of this haunted history. In this timely and urgent book, settler historian Margaret Jacobs tells the stories of the individuals and communities who are working together to heal historical wounds--and reveals how much we have to gain by learning from our history instead of denying it. Jacobs traces the brutal legacy of systemic racial injustice to Indigenous people that has endured since the nation's founding. Explaining how early attempts at reconciliation succeeded only in robbing tribal nations of their land and forcing their children into abusive boarding schools, she shows that true reconciliation must emerge through Indigenous leadership and sustained relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people that are rooted in specific places and histories. In the absence of an official apology and a federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ordinary people are creating a movement for transformative reconciliation that puts Indigenous land rights, sovereignty, and values at the forefront. With historical sensitivity and an eye to the future, Jacobs urges us to face our past and learn from it, and once we have done so, to redress past abuses. Drawing on dozens of interviews, After One Hundred Winters reveals how Indigenous people and settlers in America today, despite their troubled history, are finding unexpected gifts in reconciliation.

This book focuses on the toxic legacy of Native North America, which is pervasive but largely invisible to most non-Native peoples. Many toxic sites are located in out-of-the-way rural areas largely forgotten by the majority of America, but which nonetheless have supplied its industries with the rudiments of manufacturing for the better part of a century before being closed and cast aside. Thousands of contaminated sites exist in the United States due to dumped, left out, or otherwise improperly managed hazardous waste. These sites include manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills, and mining sites. Based on the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleans up these so-called Superfund sites, of which roughly 40 percent are located in Native country.
The book links present-day Native American cultural and economic revival to a fundamental struggle to restore the health of both Native peoples and their homelands. It links past and present with a sense of Native Americans’ perceptions of nature and the sacred land. By doing so, it also provides the majority society with an example to emulate as we emerge, by necessity, from the age of fossil fuels into a sustainable energy paradigm.
This makes the book a must-read for students, scholars, and researchers of Native American studies, US politics, environmental studies, public policy, as well as policy-makers interested in a better understanding of the environmental devastation of Native land and its consequences.