Ohio's first peoples /

The Ohio Bicentennial Series, prompted by the state's 200th birthday in 2003, gives readers five volumes of works intended "to preserve and make accessible significant elements of the state's rich and diverse heritage." O'Donnell's work on Ohio's Native peoples both succeeds and leaves readers wanting. The strongest point is that it brings together in a single, readable book material from a wide variety of both published and manuscript sources on Native Americans in Ohio from prehistory through removal in the 1840s. The weakest point, the fault of neither the author nor the series editors, is a seemingly perpetual limitation that interprets Ohio's first inhabitants only through their participation in conflicts with European arrivals from the 1750s to 1815. While the detail on Indian-Indian diplomacy is impressive, at times it is difficult to determine whether the book is primarily about Native Americans, or about French/British/American military and political initiatives against them. The pages on Lalawethika/Tenskwatawa (The Prophet) are particularly interesting. A short follow-up on present-day initiatives by Native peoples toward reasserting a continued presence in Ohio would have been a welcome addition. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Most libraries. R. B. Way Owens Community College