Essays on American Indian and Mormon History

P. Jane Hafen (Taos Pueblo) is professor emerita of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is author of Reading Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, and editor of Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and the Sun Dance Opera.  Brenden W. Rensink is associate director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies and associate professor of history at Brigham Young University. He is the author of Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands.

“This volume will improve considerably the field of Mormon studies by contributing to its critical and intersectional turn. There has been no comparable book-length work focusing on the experiences of American Indian Mormons from an indigenous perspective. This compilation of essays brings together many voices in a way that builds strength and fosters reflection on shared issues and points of contact.” —Joanna Brooks, author of The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith and coeditor of Decolonizing Mormonism“Essays on American Indian and Mormon History cleverly interweaves literary and historical analysis with personal anecdotal tales from Native and allied scholars. It explores overlooked indigenous perspectives through interdisciplinary essays and vignettes that range from whimsical to factual, and thoughtfully balanced to broaden our understanding of Indian-Mormon history, memory, and meaning within a context of colonization.” —Matthew Garrett, author of Making Lamanites:Mormons, Native Americans, and the Indian Student Placement Program, 1947–2000“This compilation should be seen as an invitation not only to study this fascinating topic more acutely, but also to integrate sources and methodologies that challenge simplistic renditions of the relationship between American Indians and the Mormon faith.” —Western Historical Quarterly “These essays provide scholars with new stories, additional insights, and a more complete picture of the enmeshed fields of Ameri­can Indian and Mormon histories. In all, Essays on American Indian and Mormon History is a solid volume that serves as an initial foray into potentially groundbreaking scholarship.” —Journal of Arizona History“Essays on American Indian and Mormon History is a significant intervention in the growing literature that examines the interactions between Native peoples and Latter-day Saint religion…. the collection provides an indispensable introduction to the main themes of that history. This excellent compilation will doubtless provide a solid foundation for future scholarship on Indian and Latter-day Saint history.” —Journal of Mormon History