From the Publisher
In a fiery account as chilling as a legal thriller, Rebecca Nagle lays bare centuries of injustice in Oklahoma and the southeastern lands from which the American government exiled her ancestors and thousands of other Indigenous peoples. By the Fire We Carry is a clear and courageous call for justice.” — Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried and Ties That Bind
“This is great storytelling, dogged reporting, and a compelling personal tale all wrapped in a book that should live for years to come.” — Timothy Egan, author of A Fever in the Heartland
“Nagle brings us face-to-face with personal and collective histories and their consequences in a multigenerational story of corruption, betrayal, and the enduring strength of Native resistance. This book is enlightening, enraging, inspiring, and impossible to put down.” — Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race and Mediocre
“This is brilliant journalism and exceptional history. In the best tradition of social justice writing, it challenges the head, breaks the heart, and offers hope for the future.” — Philip J. Deloria, Dakota descent, author of Becoming Mary Sully
“Part legal page-turner, part her own compelling family saga, and part eloquent lament for the horrific way our nation has treated Native Americans over the centuries, Rebecca Nagle’s By the Fire We Carry has also given us something exceedingly rare—a story about Native Americans in the Supreme Court in which the good guys actually win.” — Adam Cohen, author of Supreme Inequality
“Spanning several centuries and covering topics ranging from the rights of impoverished Native criminal defendants to the Indian law jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court, By the Fire We Carry is essential reading for the American public.” — Sarah Deer, JD; enrolled citizen, Muscogee (Creek) Nation; author of The Beginning and End of Rape
“With a veteran storyteller’s talent and the easy first-person narration of a family memoirist, Nagle shows how the tragic political legacy tribes have been given continues to disrupt Native communities today.” — Kevin K. Washburn, dean, University of Iowa College of Law; citizen of the Chickasaw Nation; former assistant secretary for Indian Affairs
“I cannot think of a book that more powerfully illustrates that the past is never dead. By the Fire We Carry is a triumph.” — Claudio Saunt, author of Unworthy Republic
“By The Fire We Carry is history come alive, an intelligent and personal story about justice. Rebecca Nagle is at her best as a deft journalist and storyteller.” — Nick Estes, author of Our History Is the Future
“Nagle gracefully carries readers back and forth through time, explaining the history of the Five Tribes before and after the Trail of Tears, the evolution of U.S. policy toward Native Americans, and the unique peculiarities of Indian law…. She is just as careful to elucidate the technicalities of court procedure, helping readers understand how a death-row appeal on jurisdictional grounds led to ‘the largest restoration of Indigenous land in US history.’ The legal arcana are dense, but Nagle’s writing is not. With restrained passion she exposes one injustice after another…. Gripping, infuriating, and illuminating—a valuable corrective to our national ignorance.” — Kirkus, starred review
“[A] brilliant, kaleidoscopic debut. . . . Nagle’s narrative is lucid and moving . . . . a showstopper.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“In this thrilling legal exposé, investigative journalist Nagle uses her exemplary skills to scrutinize the Supreme Court case, McGirt vs Oklahoma. . . . Combining impeccable research with rich detail and scintillating prose, Nagle tells a story that is two hundred years in the making and enormously relevant today. Excellent for book groups; fans of Patrick Radden Keefe and David Grann will be transfixed. . . . [This is an] important topic made electric by Nagle's dogged reporting and suspense as riveting as a Michael Connelly courtroom drama.” — Booklist, starred review
“…a vital account…. With precision and ease, Nagle defines and contextualizes legal terms and historical figures, allowing the reader to gain footholds for exploration and discussion as well as pass judgment on the supposed impartial nature of the American government and Supreme Court….essential reading for considering how the country can end this cycle of irreparable damage and move toward a more just future.” — BookPage, starred review
“Breathtaking: essential reading for anyone yet to understand who US law exists to serve, and who it exists to exploit. Nagle’s book achieves impeccable balance; it’s a call for hope which still never loses sight of the labor and blood underpinning every victory in this rigged system. A triumph.” — Noreen Masud, author of A Flat Place
“Compellingly told and deeply researched, Nagle’s timely work brilliantly reveals the sweeping and yet profoundly personal consequences of ongoing Indigenous struggles for sovereignty.” — Caroline Dodds Pennock, author of On Savage Shores
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2024-07-10
A Cherokee journalist unpacks the landmark 2020 Supreme Court case that recognized the eastern half of the state of Oklahoma as Indian country.
In 1832, almost 200 years beforeMcGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court held inWorcester v. Georgia that the Cherokee nation was a sovereign power. Andrew Jackson ignored it, forcing the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations—collectively called the Five Tribes—to leave their ancestral lands in what is now the southeastern United States and go west of the Mississippi to Indian Territory. Nagle gracefully carries readers back and forth through time, explaining the history of the Five Tribes before and after the Trail of Tears, the evolution of U.S. policy toward Native Americans, and the unique peculiarities of Indian law, thornily complex in part because “US courts kept bending the rules, and not to the benefit of tribes.” She is just as careful to elucidate the technicalities of court procedure, helping readers understand how a death-row appeal on jurisdictional grounds led to “the largest restoration of Indigenous land in US history.” The legal arcana are dense, but Nagle’s writing is not. With restrained passion she exposes one injustice after another. Following a recitation of the greed and lawlessness prompted by the discovery of oil on Muscogee land, she observes that the “origin story of the great state of Oklahoma contains a vast criminal conspiracy to rob Native people of their land and money.” Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, considered the swing vote in the case, Nagle writes: “After everything our ancestors sacrificed, our land was in the hands of this one person—who knew a fraction of our history, if that. The feeling was powerlessness.”
Gripping, infuriating, and illuminating—a valuable corrective to our national ignorance.
