Extract

The front cover of Terri Castaneda’s new monograph is centered on a photograph of Marie Mason Potts (1895–1978), a Mountain Maidu woman. Like the cover, Castaneda’s meticulously researched history recenters Potts as one of the most influential California Indian activists of her generation. A passion project of nearly two decades, Castaneda’s work highlights her strong commitment and record of community-based scholarship, making lasting connections with Potts’s descendants and Mountain Maidu peoples. Using the rich record left behind by Potts’s own writings in newspapers, letters, and oral interviews, Castaneda foregrounds Potts’s own voice. The book is divided into three parts. Part One covers Potts’s early life. Castaneda argues this period in Potts’s life set the stage for her lifelong work toward tribal land reclamation and political activism. Potts was greatly influenced by her grandfather, Hukespem, also known as Big Meadow Bill. Her experiences at the local Greenville Indian School drove her east to join her sisters at Carlisle Indian School. Writing for the student newspaper The Carlisle Arrow, Potts found her journalistic vocation

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