Stealing America: Join the PHB Book Club, Saturday, Oct 17!

NOTE: This is a book club! That means that we READ and DISCUSS the book. Sometimes people attend if they haven't read the book, and that's fine, but it's even better, and more fun, if you do.

For this book club meeting we're reading Linford Fisher's Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in US History (New York: Liveright, 2026).

You can find it in your local library, online, or in your local bookshop. We also have a dozen copies left at 50% off the retail price! Order your copy for $20 plus $6.25 (ie $26.25) post and packing on our website, here. Please make a note that it's for Stealing America - otherwise we won't know to send you the book.

This is a sweeping overview of Native enslavement, from the first arrival of European colonists in the Americas to the tragedy of Native children forced into distant boarding schools.

It is, as one reviewer said, "an indispensable book, as intellectually provocative as it is emotionally wrenching." Here's your chance to read and discuss it - and find fellow history fans in the process.

Here's what Evana Tamayo, our book club moderator, has to say about it:

In Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History, Linford Fisher demonstrates that the evidence for Native enslavement is everywhere if we are willing to look. Building on a career that includes The Indian Great Awakening and the Stolen Relations initiative, Fisher traces how Indigenous slavery and land theft reinforced each other throughout English and American colonization.

Spanning nearly 500 years - from 1492 through the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 - this account examines how an estimated 600,000 Native Americans in the US were ensnared in forced labor. Fisher highlights the central role of captivity across every state, tracking the displacement of Native peoples to northern farms, southern plantations, overseas colonies, and 20th-century forced assimilation practices. Grounded in extensive archival research and partnerships with descendant tribal communities, the book foregrounds Indigenous survival, resistance, and ongoing sovereignty while providing a clear framework for understanding the intertwined histories of Native and African enslavement.

Whether you are deeply familiar with early American history or engaging with this topic for the first time, your perspective is welcome. Grab a copy, bring your insights, and join us for a collaborative discussion on his research methodology, his work with tribal communities, and the enduring throughlines of land loss and labor.

About the Author

Linford D. Fisher is associate professor of History at Brown University. A leading scholar of early American history and Indigenous captivity, his research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, and he directs the landmark Stolen Relations: Recovering Native Enslavers and Enslaved Histories digital project.

Please note that Lin is speaking at our upcoming event on October 7, about Stolen Relations, the inter-tribal project at Brown University for which he is the principal investigator. Sign up here.

The Partnership of Historic Bostons is an all-volunteer organization. As always, our public history events are free. But to make our book club possible, we need your help! Please donate now.

Image: Cover of Linford Fisher's Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in US History (New York: Liveright, 2026). The powerful cover image is by Silvermoon LaRose, Narragansett, storyteller, artist and deputy director of the Tomaquag Museum, Rhode Island.