Denise E. Bates

Before the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana became one of the state’s top private employersâ€"with its vast landholdings and economic enterprisesâ€"they lived well below the poverty line and lacked any clear legal status. Basket Diplomacy reveals how the Coushatta people made the Bayou Blue settlement their home by embedding themselves into the area’s cultural, economic, and political domains.