Presents the stories of forty individuals, from 17 different tribes, representing 11 nations of North America: Miami, Potawatomi, Delaware, Shawnee, Peoria, Oneida, Ottawa, Winnebago, Sac and Fox, Chippewa, and Kickapoo. This book speaks of the urgency for making room for multiple voices drawn from many traditions.

Forty individuals, from 17 different tribes, representing 11 nations, tell their stories in "Always a People". Like other Native Americans, the Woodland Nations have tenaciously clung to their sense of community despite 150 years of government policies aimed at destroying their culture. As descendants of people who shaped the history of the North American continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, the narrators reveal a close affinity to the land from which most of them have been forcibly removed. The 11 nations represented in this volume are Miami, Potawatomi, Delaware, Shawnee, Peoria, Oneida, Ottawa, Winnebago, Sac and Fox, Chippewa, and Kickapoo. While all of the tribes have their own particular history, there are shared patterns of experience. All see themselves as people who do not fit the stereotypes often associated with 'Native Americans.' They speak of the urgency for making room for multiple voices drawn from many traditions.

Foreword by Michael Shinkle and Linda Shinkle
Preface by Rita Kohn and W. Lynwood Montell
Introduction by R. David EdmundsPortraits and Oral HistoriesPhilip V. Alexis
Lucy Sadie Parks Blalock
Sharon Burkybile
Frank Bush
George J. "Buck" Captain
Rae Daugherty
Victoria Daugherty
Charles Dawes
Leroy Dolson
Emma Greenfeather Donaldson
Leroy Ellis
Henryetta Ellis
Guy Willis Froman
Keller George
Don E. Giles
Don Greenfeather
Patricia A. Hrabik
Lewis B. Ketchum
Floyd E. Leonard
Tom Maulson
Louis E. Myers
Joanna J. Nichol
Michael Pace
Helen Rameriz
Dan Rapp
Chris Schenkel
Francis M. Shoemaker
Lora Marks Siders
Billie Smith
David Lee Smith
Nicky Glenn Smith
Lawrence Frank Snake
Richard Snake
Edward Leonard Thompson
Grace Thorpe
Beulah Timothy
Tom Topash
Wap Shing (John Mohringer)
Raymond O. White, Jr.
Curtis Zunigha
Afterword by Michelle Mannering