"The descent of the first Americans to the bottom run of Michigan's socioeconomic ladder is a sad and reveling tale. Cleland, curator of Great Lakes archaeology and ethnology at the Michigan State University Museum, is unabashedly sympathetic to the trials of the Great Lakes Indians." — Edmund Danziger Jr., Organization of American Historians
— Edmund Danziger, Jr., Organization of American Historians
"Charles Cleland wrote Rites of Conquest for the "sophisticated lay reader" to whom he offers an objective history of Great LakesIndians or Anishnabeg, designed neither to "glorify" nor "vilify" Native Americans, but dedicated to defining their "special place" in history." — Robert Doherty, Michigan Historical Review
— Robert Doherty, Michigan Historical Review