About

Dr. David Martinez’s area of concentration is American Indian intellectual history, in which he has been teaching and publishing since fall semester 2000, when he began his academic career at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus. Since then Dr. Martinez has developed a specialty in Progressive Era writer-activists, such as Charles A Eastman, about whom David published a book, Dakota Philosopher (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009), which analyzed Eastman’s writings 1902 to 1918 and the role his ideas played at influencing the Indian rights agenda during his era. Carlos Montezuma is referenced in the latter volume as one of Eastman’s most important contemporaries, whose ideas about abolishing the Indian Bureau and radically reforming federal Indian policy were significant in their own right. Both Eastman and Montezuma are featured as major figures in an historical anthology edited by Dr. Martinez, The American Indian Intellectual Tradition: An Anthology of Writings from 1772 to 1972 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Montezuma in turn was the focus of an article David wrote for a special double issue of the American Indian Quarterly/Studies in American Indian Literatures published this past summer 2013, titled “Carlos Montezuma’s Fight Against ‘Bureauism’: An Unexpected Pima Hero.” The latter was based on an invited presentation Dr. Martinez did at Ohio State University, fall 2012, commemorating the centennial anniversary of the first meeting of the Society of American Indians, a Progressive Era organization committed to advocating for Indian rights. Dr. Martinez is the Principal Investigator on the project.