Bad Indians Book Club is a book about finding a way of being based on the strength of our relationships. It is a celebration of history as a dynamic force, a conscious evaluation of what has worked, what has not worked, and how it affects the transition into the future. It is a radical book—radical in the sense of pulling up by the roots, clearing space for planting new roots. It is not a return to the past, but an affirmation of its contributions to a present and future growing from all has been good. It is a call to dawisijegam (clearing space): making room for many ideas and stories, exploring literature and building community.
I chose this book for the title, just defiant enough to stir rebellion in my heart, and also for the cover. Here we have the neat long hair, parted perfectly in the centre as we have come to expect. But it is the eyes that captured my attention: defiant, angry… or perhaps just not what I expected to see. These are not meek and devoted eyes; these are eyes that see the world and all that is in it. This face is strong. This woman, I read, reclaimed her name, was her father’s translator and assistant, and was known to hold balls. I was surprised, and then I was not. This is a face that rejects stereotypes.
It is a liberating book, one that challenges the “good Indian” rhetoric of colonization on many levels. I am among those who was raised on a charming little blue history book with a fleet schooner on the cover, learning how the Indigenous people helped the French but not the English and were very nice. Somehow, until historian Daniel Paul filled in the gaps, most of us did not stop to consider how tough things got when the French and their Mi’kmaq allies lost the war. Meanwhile, I learned many things in workshops and during visits that chilled me. Many things were not in the history books. These, it seems, only accepted “good Indians.”
The “good Indian,” it emerges, is the one who follows the rules of colonization, accepts white ways, is saved by white people and even saves them in the movies, and then fades away. The “bad Indian,” on the other hand, refuses to be saved. They “refused the offer of rescue through compliance with the system that rejected them in the first place.” (19) They are rejected, forced to the margins, not because of what they did but because of who they were.
Patty Krawec has completed some marvellous, radical work here—from the culture of John Wayne to white feminism, the roots are laid bare.
“Bad Indians . . .are experts at refusal.” They refuse the colonial narrative, and they examine history, science, and literature in terms of relationship. History is described not as a linear river, but as a dense system of rivers, with each history forming part of the whole. It examines the sources, the events that came before the story and gave it its definition. Science is rooted in relationship, not extraction; the land here is formative, a community of many interactions, not a single being. The literature of “bad Indians” embraces the banned books, the stories that challenge the white narrative. Their “horror” challenges social assumptions about who or what is dangerous; they point more to the perils implied in taking without permission. History and science are passed on through the stories, and fiction, as a vehicle, does not necessarily mean untrue. It is seen that marginalized cultures, cultures in diaspora, have a new perspective on belonging, looking not so much as physical place as at connections. And their stories honour both past and future, for they are written for those yet to come. Always, it is about relationship.
Patty Krawec has completed some marvellous, radical work here—from the culture of John Wayne to white feminism, the roots are laid bare. Somehow, it had not occurred to me that white feminists looked after liberating their own, with marginalized cultures cast yet again in a support or service role.
The section on the impact of colonization and the church’s “theological cover-up” is significant: to say the actions were not done by “real” Christians does not excuse Christianity. She sees that the theology and doctrines that sheltered these views has not changed. (Perhaps here, too, there must be dawisijegam—here we, too, are challenged to uproot and clear space, so that the future might grow.)
The book takes us through many books, many stories, many ideas. When I started taking notes, I soon realized that I would have to record every line to capture all “points of significance.” There is a wealth of ideas here, complete with thorough footnotes, details on recommended viewings and readings, and a comprehensive bibliography. Each person mentioned is introduced by their cultural markers, as much as possible, and her documentation is thorough. Yet warmth and dry sense of humour is often present, as when she observes “so much dominating horror denies marginalized people an afterlife and condemns them to haunt white Americans.” (170) I especially like the way each section contains exposition and narrative, with each section culminating in a story of Kwe, in her journeys through history as the one known as Deer Woman. We learn from the exposition; we see its truths in the stories of Kwe. Although this is a deep, thoroughly researched book, I emerged from the reading refreshed, not burdened.
There is so much to learn here, so many starting points for dialogue, so many opportunities to clear space and grow. Patty Krawec emerges as a voice for the “bad Indians,” all those pushed to the margins but refusing to be defined by them.
Patty Krawec is an Anishinaabe/Ukrainian writer and speaker belonging to Lac Seul First Nation in Treaty 3 territory and residing in Niagara Falls. She has served on the board of the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre and co-hosted the Medicine for the Resistance podcast, and she is a founding director of the Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation which challenges settlers to pay rent for living on Indigenous land. As a social worker, Patty focused on supporting victims of sexual and gendered violence and child abuse and was an active union member throughout her career. Her current work and writing, focusing on how Anishinaabe belonging and thought can inform faith and social justice practices, has been published in Sojourners, Rampant Magazine, Midnight Sun, Yellowhead Institute, Indiginews, Religion News Service, and Broadview. Krawec’s first book, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future was published in 2022.
Publisher: GOOSE LANE EDITIONS (September 16, 2025)
Paperback: 9″ x 6″ | 232 pp
ISBN: 9781773104614
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
