Includes bibliographical references (pages 354-376) and index.

A People Who Would Not Kneel taps an unusual wealth of historical documents and native testimony to tell the extraordinary story of the Kuna struggle against outside domination during the first quarter of this century. James Howe illuminates the triangular relationship among a weak Panamanian government intent on creating a homogenous Hispanic culture; an Indian people who used the political methods of a national society to resist; and the hemisphere's dominant nation, a colonial power that had supposedly renounced colonialism. Vividly portraying the tenacious, outspoken individuals caught up in this struggle, he chronicles Kuna confrontations with black frontiersmen, foreign corporations, and competing Catholic and Protestant missionaries.

The Kuna also contended with official campaigns to suppress traditional noserings and mola blouses and to impose schools, dance clubs, and modernity. In 1924 they turned to Richard Marsh, a North American explorer in search of a mythical tribe of white Indians. Marsh helped lead an armed revolt against Panama, which led to intervention by the United States and ultimately to a shipboard peace agreement that guaranteed the Kuna much of what they had fought for.

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