Linford D. Fisher on 'Stealing America' — Indigenous slavery in U.S. history
Brown historian Fisher uncovers the suppressed history of Indigenous enslavement in America, reframing the nation's origin story with devastating archival evidence.
Why we picked this
The history of Indigenous enslavement in America has been systematically erased — Fisher's archival work recovers it with the rigor it demands.
Linford D. Fisher’s “Stealing America” takes on one of the most consequential blind spots in American historiography: the widespread enslavement of Indigenous peoples across what became the United States. Drawing on years of archival research at Brown University, Fisher documents how this practice was not marginal or incidental but central to the colonial project — and how it has been deliberately obscured in the centuries since.
The book has been described as intellectually provocative and emotionally wrenching in equal measure, which is about right for a work that forces readers to reconsider foundational narratives about American freedom and bondage. Fisher’s scholarship sits at the intersection of Indigenous studies and the history of slavery, two fields that have too often been treated as separate conversations.
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