This collection of essays addresses the history of Numic-speaking American Indians of the Great Basin–Colorado Plateau–Mohave Desert area since these lands passed into the sovereign control of the United States after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The goal of this study is to revisit historical processes and events that transformed the lives of these Americans so profoundly that their effects are still being felt today. The perspective of contemporary Indians who shared their views with the authors, wrote portions of this history, advised on its production, and reviewed its contents, informed the versions of history relayed throughout this book. The themes explored in this collection interweave oral histories, collected by the authors through interviews with Indian people, and data from primary archival sources and publications. The essays that follow represent a small sample of themes that concern Indian people, who believe that their values, opinions, and version of historical processes and events are seldom portrayed fairly, if at all, in Western literature. This preoccupation with telling their history is all the more relevant in the context of government–to–government consultation between American Indian tribes and federal agencies, wherein productive debates about land management and resource preservation issues hinge on a shared understanding of why the land and its resources are important to Indian people and how Indian people lost control over them. It is precisely under the auspices of such a shared understanding between the Nevada Test Site and Nellis Air Force Base and several Indian tribes and organizations from Nevada, California, Arizona, and Utah that this historical study was conducted.