A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the ‘90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later.
Before 2020, Native American reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, the U.S. government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples. That changed on July 9, 2020, when a high-profile Supreme Court case—which originated with a small-town murder two decades earlier—affirmed the reservation of Muscogee Nation. The ruling resulted in the largest restoration of tribal land in U.S. history, merely because the Court chose to follow the law.
In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of their land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed.
Over a century later, when a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen, his defence attorneys argued the murder occurred on reservation land. This would mean the State of Oklahoma didn't have the jurisdiction to execute him. But, the State still held that the reservation no longer existed. This case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where in 2020 the justices ruled on the side of the Muscogee nation. Their ruling would ultimately affirm the existence of multiple reservations covering half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle's own Cherokee Nation.
Here Rebecca Nagle tells the story of the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in Eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history.
About the Author
Rebecca Nagle is an award-winning reporter, writer, and citizen of Cherokee Nation. She is the creator and host of Crooked Media's chart-topping podcast This Land. Her work has been featured in The Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Guardian, USA Today, Teen Vogue, the Huffington Post, among other outlets. Nagle lives in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
Industry Reviews
'A fascinating book and an important one. Nagle is skilled at explaining the intricacies of the legal arguments in terms that a layperson can understand… She compellingly describes not only the historical wrongs committed against Indigenous peoples, but also how we can’t excuse those wrongs by assuming that they were acceptable to their contemporaries because of some kind of lesser moral standard'
Washington Post
'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 labour 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
‘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
‘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
