Ethnogeography and the native American past

For the most part, scholars have failed to incorporate geography into the interdisciplinary canon of ethnohistory. At the same time, geographers writing on native history have not integrated fully the ethnohistorical method into their own work. The essay explains to ethnohistorians and geographers alike what the other has been up to and why it is vital that each group begin to consider ethnogeography as an important category of analysis. A few suggestions are made as to how ethnogeography can illuminate different native societies' understanding of land and their relationship to it and to also help explain the actions they took to defend it from the encroachments of European settlers and colonial expansion.