10:58pm June 30, 2014

“Even the most sympathetic non-Indians [have] been schooled to deny this claim to international status made by the Indian tribes. Most of the literature on Indians has concentrated on the fierce and gallant fight of the Plains tribes against General Custer and the United States cavalry; the early part of American history, when Indians were the equals or superiors of the colonists, has rarely been written. Rather than a claim to international status, most non-Indian readers [have] been led to believe that, following the Indian Wars, the Indians meekly marched off to reservations and lived in peace. The whole implication of the traditional Indian stereotype [is] that the Indians had become the best of American citizens within a decade of Wounded Knee [1890].”

118 notes