History's outsiders? Global indigenous histories

The study of global history will be greatly enhanced, too, if it can meet the challenge of Indigenous history. Indigenous peoples long custodianship and management of forests, rivers, and seas offer pathways to a more sustainable future. Even in regions where there was less violence, the uninvited arrival of outsider populations jeopardised or totally destroyed Indigenous hunting, herding, agricultural, and trading economies. Government-sanctioned policies removed Indigenous children from their families, often violently, then raised them as if they were orphans in distant state-run institutions. In Canada, the United States, and Australia, Indigenous people suffered their lands being stolen and consequent poverty; in Greenland, too, the Inuit lost babies and the children that they dearly loved. Understanding Indigenous history better will enable people to get out of this static ahistorical mind-set.