{"product_id":"from-bayou-teche-to-fifth-daniel-h-jr-usner-9781496246691","title":"From Bayou Teche to Fifth Avenue: How Basket Diplomacy Saved the Chitimacha Indian Nation","description":"\u003cp\u003eDaniel H. Usner offers a cultural, political, and social history of the Chitimacha Tribe in South Louisiana and its struggle for political sovereignty. Between the 1890s and 1940s, Chitimacha Indian women in South Louisiana--with extraordinary baskets they created from rivercane--strategically built a network of allies that originated in a relationship with neighboring white women and that would eventually extend across the United States. Responding resourcefully to renewed interest in their basketry largely driven by the arts and crafts market and ethnographic collection, the Chitimachas were able to contact individuals and groups far from their home who possessed potential influence on government policy. Confronting at the same time perilous threats to their land, autonomy, and even their lives in the Jim Crow South, women in this Indigenous community were in essence weaving political allies as they wove their rivercane baskets.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBesides the considerable revenue Chitimacha baskets brought to tribal coffers, the story of the Chitimacha people and their predicament gained attention as their basketry appeared in major art gallery shows and museums and was sought by art collectors. By expanding the view beyond southern Louisiana and tracking the nationwide circulation of Chitimacha basketry, \u003ci\u003eFrom Bayou Teche to Fifth Avenue\u003c\/i\u003e illustrates how Indigenous people in North America have creatively confronted adversity and peril with aesthetic forms of expression.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Daniel H. Jr. Usner\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1496246691\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781496246691\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Nebraska Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 416\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.78lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.25h x 6.39w x 1.46d","brand":"Daniel H. Jr. Usner","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48874448847103,"sku":"9781496246691","price":70.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/from-bayou-teche-to-fifth-daniel-h-jr-usner-9781496246691","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}