The Inconvenient Indian Thomas King Summary

Thomas King is very explicit in informing his readers that he is not a historian. He is however, an Indigenous person which prescribes him a specific set of qualifications to talk about Indigenous history from a very personal point of view. In his work, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, King emphasises this fact by referring to his work as an “account,” not a history. Where does this place his work then? If he discusses the past, researches factual information to discuss the past, and makes arguments about the past, why is his work not a history? I believe that Thomas King’s account is not a history because it is an autobiography of the Indigenous experience as perceived by King. I assert this specifically

Thomas King takes his readers through his perception on what it means to be Indigenous from his earliest memories of playing “cowboys and Indians” through his youth travelling and protesting up to his now optimistic opinions in his old age. Most specifically, he outlines three outlined identities for indigenous people as “Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians.” In history, these three categories hold up solidly as well. Consider, for a moment, the case at Xá:ytem as described by Jonathon Clapperton where all three of King’s categories of people can be seen. Xá:ytem is currently a National Historic Site in Canada. It was established in protection of a transformer stone of great significance to the local Stó:lō Nation, and at one point housed an elaborate interpretation centre which was later shut down. Xá:ytem was protected and preserved in large part because of the “Dead Indian,” that is to say, the money and support to preserve the site was raised in large part by non-native archaeologists who saw this as helping the revival of the historical “Dead Indian.” The “Live Indians” plays an active role in this case, they are the all the Indigenous children and adults visiting the site to interact with their past. The “Legal Indian” is, as King states, the most inconvenient to the site. This “Indian” takes form in the Stó:lō who reclaim the site from the white archaeologists who took possession of it through their support. This is not unlike King’s experience with where white people take on a legal “Indian” identity in school forms as a statement of solidarity. In both cases white people take on an Indigenous past which is not theirs and appropriate it to suit their vision of the past, not the past of the people whom it belongs to. This seamless transposition of