“Warrior Nation” Wins Award

Bemidji State University Professor of Ojibwe Dr. Anton Treuer has won the Denver Public Library’s Caroline Bancroft History Prize for his book “Warrior Nation: A History of the Red Lake Ojibwe.”

The Caroline Bancroft Prize annually by the library’s Western History and Genealogy Department. According to the terms of the late Caroline Bancroft’s will, an annual prize “to be awarded to the author of the best book on Colorado or Western American History published during the current year, to be known as the Caroline Bancroft History Prize.”

“Warrior Nation” explores 250 years of the unique and important history of the Red Lake Nation. It offers not only a chronicle of the Red Lake Nation, but also a compelling perspective on a difficult piece of U.S. history.

Treuer conducted oral histories with elders across the Red Lake reservation, learning the stories carried by the people. For the book, the Red Lake band for the first time made available its archival collections, including the personal papers of Peter Graves, a political strategist and tribal leader for the first half of the 20th century, which tell a story about the negotiations over reservation boundaries.

“Warrior Nation” won the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History in June, and was a finalist for Minnesota Book Award and the Hogander Book Award.