Chitto Harjo

Donald L. Fixico (Muscogee, Seminole, Shawnee, and enrolled Sac and Fox), originally from Oklahoma, is Regents and Distinguished Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University. A former Newberry Fellow, UCLA Postdoctoral Fellow, and Ford Fellow, he is the author and editor of seventeen books. Fixico was inducted into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame in 2026.

Finalist, 2026 Spur Awards, historical nonfiction category, sponsored by the Western Writers of AmericaHonorable Mention from the Oklahoma Historical Society Awards“This may be Donald Fixico’s best book in a long and distinguished career. He tells the dramatic story of Chitto Harjo and the Crazy Snake Rebellion to reveal a larger and longer struggle. Both personal and thoroughly researched, this revealing and quite original history traces how Native communalism and the Medicine Way resisted Christianity and American individualism within the Muscogee Nation.”—Richard White, Stanford University“Chitto Harjo (Crazy Snake) was a man caught in the grind between two worlds as the ancient one of the Muscogees met the overpowering one of Euro-American newcomers. Was he a troublemaker or patriot? Donald Fixico argues compellingly here for the latter, and by doing that he throws light on global colonization as a clash of spiritual and perceptual power as much as one of outward authority and command.”—Elliot West, author of Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion