Overview
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 • A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year • An NPR 2024 “Books We Loved” Pick • An Esquire Best Book of Fall 2024 • A Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year • A Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of 2024
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard First Book Prize • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction
"Impeccably researched. . . . A fascinating book and an important one.”—Washington Post
“A brilliant, kaleidoscopic debut. . . . A showstopper.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
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.
This book title, By the Fire We Carry (The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land), ISBN: 9780063112056, by Rebecca Nagle, published by HarperCollins (October 28, 2025) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
Unlike Amazon and other retailers who may also offer By the Fire We Carry (The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land) books on their website, we specialize in large quantities and provide personal service, from trusted, experienced, friendly people in Portland, Oregon. We offer a Price Match Guarantee, and QuickQuote form, to make purchasing quick and easy.
Prefer to work with a human being when you order By the Fire We Carry (The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land) books in bulk? Our Book Specialists are standing by Monday-Friday 8-5 PST, ready to help!