By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land
"[A] brilliant, kaleidoscopic debut. . . . Nagle's narrative is lucid and moving . . . . a showstopper." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
The Washington Post Most Anticipated Fall Read - Los Angeles Times and Parade Most Anticipated September Release - Bustle Most Anticipated Fall Read - Book Riot Most Anticipated September Nonfiction Release
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 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later
Before 2020, American Indian 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, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples.
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 Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn't have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle's own Cherokee Nation.
Here Rebecca Nagle recounts 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. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.
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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.
"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
