By The Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagle

This book is and is not about the 2020 McGirt SCOTUS decision that affirmed the Creek (Mvskoke) reservation and, by extension, the reservations of the Cherokee and many others. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, which opened with: “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise.” A surprise to me, and maybe most, and the right one. This book is about much more is about much more than the McGirt decision. It’s a comprehensive weaving together of personal memoir, a murder case, and Native history that demonstrates that the present is a loud echo of the past, diminished only by Native resistance and occasional right decisions such as the McGirt ruling. It is not so much a victory but more of a rare instance when existing law supporting tribes was actually honored and upheld by the US government. Her stories meander but act as a comprehensive analysis of stories we know well in Indian Country. Her book is an opportunity to un-erase the past in order to understand the present. This is history about Native Americans by a Native American. She tells these stories boldly, and it is important, because they are going to be actively suppressed, distorted, and misrepresented in the near future .