Indigenous peoples -- United States -- Government relations, Indigenous peoples -- Government relations, Indigenous peoples -- United States -- History -- Sources, Indigenous title, Treaties 

"America is now struggling through a great period of self-analysis, enlightenment and revolutionary change. Violent and devisive events have shown us that if we're to survive as a nation, we must confront the truth about our history - who we are and how our country reached this point - in order to demythify and completely understand the painful legacy which has now jeopardized our commonweal. Fortunately, the American people are beginning to realize the real horror behind the fantasy of one of its most cherished myths: the noble demise of the American Indian. Recent Indian activism - of Alcatraz, Pyramid Lake, Fort Lawton, in New York State, Washington, D.C., Nevada, Alaska and elsewhere - has revealed the shocking social, political and economic plight of the original natives of this country as they live among us today. But exactly how the Indians have plummeted to such destitution (their health, education and economic situation is statistically far worse than the American Negro) remains to be fully understood. And remarkably, few Americans - including most Indians themselves - are familiar with or have had access to the historical information so necessary to comprehending this predicament.

Now for the first time, Vine Deloria, a Standing Rock Sioux, has brought together a definitive documentation of the most significant historical encounters between the American Indian and the United States: precedent-setting judicial rulings from the earliest colonial days; historic Treaties, Acts and Agreements; Congressional hearings and contemporary accounts of political, legal and military confrontations; speeches and writings of key figures - white and Indian - including a remarkable selection of hitherto little-known leaders of today . . . an epic record of the specific public incidents and institutional decisions by which the United States expropriated and nearly destroyed the native American."--Book jacket.