The crucial treatise on Oceti Sakowin Oyate sovereignty and self-determination

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RESOURCES: PODCAST & DISCUSSION GUIDE

Podcast interview by OLWS Board Member Dr. Nick Estes (Sicangu) interviewing descendant Philip Deloria regarding the work and life of Vine Deloria, Jr. The discussion guide was created by OLWS Executive Director Tasiyagnunpa Livermont Barondeau (Oglala Lakota).

#NativeReads: Custer Died For Your Sins

AUTHOR

Vine Deloria, Jr.

Book Summary

After 50 years, Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto remains the crucial treatise on tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Driven by the largely successful fight against the “paper war” land grab by states and the U.S. Congress during what historians now call the Termination Era, Deloria describes firsthand the attack on the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s grazing rights and land base and the subsequent work of Indian Nations near and far to fight back.

This landmark book continues to remind us that Indian Country can solve the problems continuously caused by America’s ongoing domestic (and global) imperialism and settler colonialism, so long as tribal people work within their local bands and tribes and intertribally. As an architect of American Indian Studies, Deloria continues to inform today’s tribal scholars, as well as those seeking to understand Indian Country beyond stereotypes. While the language and detailed examples may seem specific to the time of its writing, the larger themes and exercises in Oceti Sakowin Oyate (or Great Sioux Nation) culture-based writing and thought continues to challenge all readers to recognize that Western civilization is in no way superior to Indigenous cultures and political realities, whether in North America or globally.