The 1893 World’s Fair, held in Chicago, celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. To support the Columbian theme, city leaders raised statues of the explorer to honor what was widely regarded as his discovery and the subsequent conquest of a wild and empty continent—a feat also embodied in this booming city built on drained wetlands and cut-up prairie. Simon Pokagon, a Potawatomi scholar from the southern Great Lakes, didn’t buy into this narrative. At the fair, which lasted for six months and attracted more than 27 million visitors, Pokagon handed out an essay printed on birch bark. “In behalf of my people, the American Indians,” it opened, “I hereby declare to you, the pale-faced race that has usurped our lands and homes, that we have no spirit to celebrate with you the great Columbian Fair now being held in this Chicago city, the wonder of the world.” He saw that the “fowls of the air withered like grass before the...