When it was first published in 2010, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book was heralded as a groundbreaking illustrated history of Indigenous activism and resistance in the Americas over the previous 500 years, from contact to the present day. Eleven years later, author and artist Gord Hill has revised and expanded the book, which is now available in color for the first time.
The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book: Revised and Expanded powerfully portrays flashpoints in history when Indigenous peoples have risen up and fought back against colonizers and other oppressors. Events depicted include the Spanish conquest of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca empires; the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico; the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890; the resistance of the Great Plains peoples in the 19th century; and more recently, the Idle No More protests supporting Indigenous sovereignty and rights in 2012 and 2013, and the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. Canadian events depicted include the Oka crisis in 1990, the Grand River land dispute between Six Nations and the Government of Canada in 2006, and the Wet’suwet’en anti-pipeline protests in 2020.
With strong, plain language and evocative illustrations, this revised and expanded edition of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book includes 59 pages of new material, nearly doubling the size of the original book, and reveals the tenacity and perseverance of Indigenous peoples over the 500-plus years of genocide, massacre, torture, rape, displacement, and assimilation they have endured: a necessary antidote to conventional histories of the Americas.
The book includes a foreword by Pamela Palmater, a Mi’kmaq lawyer, professor, and political commentator.
Gord Hill is the author of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, The Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book, and The Antifa Comic Book. He is a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation whose territory is located on northern Vancouver Island and adjacent mainland in the province of “British Columbia.” He has been involved in Indigenous people’s and anti-globalization movements since 1990. He lives in British Columbia.
Here is a good read download in pdf if you are interested in the subject matter of 500 Years of Resistance.