Table of Contents

Beginnings

Part 1: Pan-Indigenous Unity

1 Unity: “United we stand, divided we perish”

2 Authority: “Ordinary Indians” and “the private club”

3 Money: “A blessing and a golden noose”

Part 2: A Philosophical Revolution and Competing Nationalisms

4 Refusal: “Empty words and empty promises”

5 Protest: Direct Action through “Militant May”

6 Sovereignty: “If you really believe that you have the right, take it!”

Reflections

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Sarah A. Nickel is Tk’emlupsemc (Kamloops Secwépemc), French Canadian, and Ukrainian. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan and has contributed to American Indian Quarterly and BC Studies.

Reviews

"Assembling Unity offers a great deal to scholars interested not only in the Canadian context but more broadly in Indigenous politics and Indigenous feminisms. Nickel’s conceptual framework stands as a model to inspire other scholars who seek to use insights from Indigenous studies in order to reframe old debates and frameworks."
*Native American and Indigenous Studies Journal*

Assembling Unity is an important book. Sarah Nickel’s timely study of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs was shortlisted for the Canadian Historical Association’s 2020 Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize and was recently announced the winner of this year’s CHA Indigenous History Book Prize. Both accolades are much deserved.
*Ormsby Review*

A rich examination of the work Indigenous political leaders and grassroots organizers did to negotiate unity as part of a longer history of political activism in the context of continued settler colonialism.
*Herizons, Fall 2019*