Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes

Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance Reviews

• 
  Randall Wallace

  Did you know that Thanksgiving Day originally celebrated the brutal slaughter of 700 native Pequots in the Connecticut colony in 1637 “in honor of the bloody victory”? Did you know that Clark of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition told the Lakota headman that he was sent by Thomas Jefferson, who could “have them all destroyed”? Four hundred years of the arrogance of American ‘diplomacy’ in one sentence. Jefferson went further and had advised Lewis to kidnap chiefs or their children to better make the civilized white man’s point. Look for the foundation of indigenous genocide to be the 1787 Northwest Ordinance. That puppy stole Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin and legalized genocidal war in the future. This legally happened because of the 15th century papal bull called “the Doctrine of Discovery” which enabled indigenous to be labeled politically non-existent. Crazy Horse dies by being stabbed in the back by a white – a great metaphor for U.S. regard for indigenous treaties. In !863, “at Whitestone Hill, women tied their babies to dogs in hopes they would escape the soldiers. As soldiers finished off the wounded, the order came to shoot the dogs.” Wow, are we bursting with pride about the creation of American wealth yet? Did you know the Minnesota Historical Society until 1915, had Little Crow’s scalp on public display? How can little Johnny become a man without learning to cut the scalp off a pre-targeted screaming human being with a dull knife? Think of the policy of putting people on reservations as racial segregation or if you like, think of U.S. Indigenous people as having been the demo for the Red Scare. Then after reservations were established, the battlefield moves to the classroom and the battle for the minds of native children. This led to Native American schools who had their own private cemeteries for children who “didn’t graduate”. The plot thickens. Nick tells us that, “Prior to colonization most indigenous societies were agricultural, not ‘hunter-gather’.” Think of water theft also as settler-colonial. In fact, “Agriculture in the western United States accounts for three-quarters of all water usage.”
  
  In the 1860, the US Military found something defenseless to attack: 10 to 15 million buffalo without Green cards that couldn’t shoot back. Even white men with the IQs of toaster ovens found they could shoot trapped buffalo, all done to free up all those hunting grounds for sale to the ancestors of people presently standing in a Dollar General Store check-out line - and so the West was won – anyone too cowardly to fight others directly and steal native land, could first instead opt to destroy that person’s food source (buffalo, orchards, gardens) after which without attacking a human, they can beat their chest like Tarzan. There was a treaty clause about “so long as the buffalo may range” that was a large capitalist incentive to slaughter large sentient beings to gain millions of ‘free’ acres. A century later, not to be outdone by their predecessors, white folks came up with the Pick-Sloan Plan to further native dispossession through large scale dams to destroy native lands and force relocation. This meant “611,642 acres of land condemned through eminent domain, 309,584 acres which were vital reservation bottom lands”. Any condemned land would effectively be “stolen twice” – a nice Wetiko touch. This country says it is based on private property, but to Nick, “sanctity of private property never applied to indigenous people.” Nick calls this centuries-long condition of settler-colonialism, “capitalism’s twin”. We have become inured to the collective theft of “indigenous bodies, knowledges and histories” in addition to lands and resources. Racial Capitalism is when one white man can own more than entire indigenous nations. The Pick Sloan Plan, Nick says, “destroyed more Indigenous lands than any other public works project in US history.”
  
  The DAPL fight was a fight against both racial capitalism and ongoing settler-colonialism. Fighting the pipeline reunified “all seven nations of the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota speaking people”. “DAPL cut through about 380 archeological sites.” Fighting DAPL meant you heard stuff on the frontlines like, “Go back to the reservation, Prairie niggers” from the neighborhood Cletus. White private security firms urinated on items before returning them to DAPL fighters.
  
  Finally, let’s look at Mount Rushmore. Yes, it had a lovely cafeteria in North by Northwest, but it is all built on stolen land and EACH president carved on it was a clear settler-colonial (TR “nationalized” millions of acres of native lands for national parks). How many natives say, “Let’s drive to land stolen from us to pay to see a monument commemorating four men who were the biggest thieves of our land on which their faces blasted into a rock that was sacred to us. Yeah, that’s the ticket.” This book was four times better than David Treuer’s 2019 ‘Heartbeat of Wounded Knee’ book.
• 
  Diogenes

  Alleen Brown of the The Intercept interviewed Professor Estes recently (07 MAR 2019), which provides an enticing hors d’oeuvre:
  https://theintercept.com/2019/03/07/n...
  
  “When you subjugate a people, you not only take their land and their language, their identity, and their sense of self — you also take away any notion of a future. The reason I chose this name is because in this particular era of neoliberal capitalism, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism [the emphasis is mine]. The argument I’m making is that within our own traditions of Indigenous resistance, we have always been a future-oriented people, whether it was taking up arms against the United States government, whether it was taking ceremonies underground into clandestine spaces, whether it was learning the enemy’s language. This pushes back against the dominant narrative that Indigenous people are a dying, diminishing race desperately holding on to the last vestiges of their culture or their land base. If that were the case, then I don’t think we would have an uprising such as Standing Rock or, today, Line 3 or Bayou Bridge, or the immense amount of mobilization around murdered and missing Indigenous women.”


  
  Full disclosure: I am a Russian-Flemish mutt-descendant (i.e., Whitey McWhite), but I’ve said it a few times that I would have made a great Black Panther if it wasn’t for the whole Caucasian thing. I abhor injustice and this nation of holistic historical hypocrisy. If all the other religious facets are false, and Buddhism reigns true, my soul might very well have been reincarnated from a simple Vietcong farmer-turned-fighter, just to push my Vietnam-vet father closer to his early grave. Injustice is the undercurrent of human history. Resistance to oppression, in all its guises, is often the noble route to Oblivion, and yet brave souls stand up with raised fists to resist the Powers of Oppression. Zack de la Rocha in front for Gen-Xers, with the Standing Rock struggle—like so many others—as bellwethers for the future. Greed will fight tooth and nail for MORE. It is up to us, those who oppose wanton greed, the desecration of Gaia, rabid consumerism, and selfish ignorance, to resist with all our will. The Future depends upon it.
  
  Estes reports from the front lines of the Standing Rock protest while giving a detailed history of the plains Indians, one slice of the horrendous treatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Pacific Islanders, and just about everywhere else, when faced with Euro-Caucasian-Christian greed—armed with so many bullets, bibles, and bacterias—from the Arctic Circle to the Isla de los Estados. While such a huge issue is deeply complex, filled with multifaceted features tough to parse in one short text, Estes does a nice job. I wouldn’t call this a “manifesto” so much, but it is a call-to-action, reflecting on history (so I guess it’s manifestoey), in order to stem the tide of what must be boiled down to the tiring dynamics of Power and Oppression, the Haves and the Have-Nots. What began with the first colonizers continues today with the corporations and their political bootlicks, redneck militarized police forces, and the privatized “security racket”. It is about natural resources, exploitation, classism, and systemic racism. The differences in how these two cultures (Native and non-Native [and I’m painting with a broad brush here]) view the landscape we occupy are potentially forever at odds. It is sad, but there is some hope. As Wallace-Wells summed up precisely in The Uninhabitable Earth: change will ONLY happen on a mass scale at the ballot box. Estes himself states this clearly: “Under capitalism, neither Democrat nor Republican can save Indigenous lands or Black and Indigenous lives. The continuation of state-sanctioned racial terror against Black and Native people, from police violence to energy development, from one administration to the next demonstrates only radical change in the form of decolonization, the repatriation of stolen lands and stolen lives, can undo centuries of settler colonialism” (p. 226). The Green New Deal IS a manifesto, one that aims to change the course of humanity’s dire impact on this aquarium-world we dominate, but the hourglass is hemorrhaging sand: we have little time. The voices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas must be heard. “Indigenous peoples are more than cultures, they are sovereign nations”, and nations constantly under siege. They could potentially lead the rest of us into a better relationship with Gaia, however you may wish to envision Her, for as Vine Deloria exclaimed in 1964, “[w]e suggest the tribes are not vestiges of the past, but laboratories of the future”. What happens with them will happen to most of the rest of us (look at poisoned Flint, Michigan, hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, those thrust into mass migrations around the globe, and countless other situations for such evidence in real-time) unless we change the course on how our individual and collective governments behave, and change they must.
  
  Estes ends the book with a choice quote, but one I disagree with even though I understand what he means: “For the earth to live, capitalism must die” (p. 227). The Earth will live regardless of what happens to humanity (just ask the dinosaurs)—unless a meteor streaks by to split this egg in two. But what I do agree with is that capitalism is wholly corrupted, and a new system must rise, one that respects the biosphere, ends mindless wars, and treats all people with kindness and equality by focusing on things that truly matter, such as living productive, peaceful, healthy lives in harmony with our surroundings. It’s a long shot, but it can be accomplished.
  
  However, as a Cynic, I imagine ignorance and selfishness will reign, because those are the dominant features of Humanity across the timeline. Please prove me wrong though.
  
  Please.
• 
  Kai

  crucial, readable, and compelling deep history of the #NoDAPL movement not as an event, but as a continuation of anti-colonial and anti-imperial resistance by Indigenous peoples worldwide. Estes' intervention is deeply important for three main reasons:
  
  ONE it situates the No DAPL uprising as part of a very deep history, showing how it was not a spontaneous uprising but the product of more than a century of resistance to settler colonialism in the great plains
  
  TWO it relates this history with verve, passion, and tact, dispelling racist, neocolonial, and reductive myths about Indigenous peoples and their movements for sovereignty. no more so is this made visible in the astonishing eye-opening chapter on Indigenous internationalism, where Estes traces the Oceti Sakowin's decades-long collaboration with global "geographies of liberation" - the Non-Aligned Movement, the Palestinian Liberation Org, the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, African nationalist movements, etc. The reductive Eurocentric reading of Indigenous nationalism that assumes that because it is place-based it is place-*bound* is completely dispelled. same wrt relations with nonhumans, nature, and the earth more broadly. these mediated networks are precisely political, not depoliticizing.
  
  THREE more conceptually, there is a whole theory of change and corresponding theory of history that runs throughout the entire book, concerning how strategies of liberation movements are accumulated. It's like the inverse side of Benjamin's reading of Angelus Novus. Rather than the accumulating ruins with which the angel can only view with horror, Estes describes the accumulating pathways for collective liberation that were - in my personal experience - completely unleashed at the No DAPL blockade, but which I had never had a true understanding before in my life.
  
  on the last page of the book Estes asks "What does water want from us? What does earth want from us?" These were crushingly precise phrasings to me. Estes' answer: "We are challenged not just to imagine, but to demand the emancipation of earth from capital. For the earth to live, capitalism must die."
  
  absolutely mandatory reading for everyone.
• 
  Edward Rathke

  A fascinating and depressing book, though it does aim for levels of hope amid the tragedy. This seems to be the continual story of native peoples in the americas--horror and tragedy.
  
  Estes does a comprehensive job of analyzing and pulling together the history of native resistance, and trying to demonstrate how this is all one uninterrupted line of continual resistance to colonialism and white supremacy. He touches on the Ghost Dance and Red Power movements, the two massacres at Wounded Knee, and Standing Rock.
  
  His analysis is fascinating and depressing but also sort of hopeful. Even in failure, there's hope. And I think we see that in his framing of indigenous resistance. A sequence of fights and failures that create a sort of rising tide of acknowledgement and unification.
  
  More than all that, he re-establishes resistance and community as being tied to the land. We are not owners of the land, but parts of the land. This was an uncontroversial belief for quite a long time, even among Europeans. That we were part of the world and not domineering beings subjugating it. But this viewpoint fell away even as it became more obviously true through scientific discoveries, like evolution.
  
  But, yeah, this is an important book, though not especially fun to read. It's worth reading and worth understanding how indigenous resistance has always been intersectional and how much power lies in creating community, not only with obvious allies, but with those who may often seem like enemies. That's where resistance has always seen the greatest gains and the most power.
  
  If you're interested in the history of Native Americans or resistance in general, this is definitely worth your time. And it adds to a growing body of work helping to demonstrate what resistance to imperial capitalism looks like.
• 
  JRT

  “Water is settler colonialism’s life blood that has continually excised from Indigenous peoples.” This book explores the unceasing battle between white settler colonialism in the “United States” and Indigenous resistance and revolution, centering the Indigenous worldview of water, earth, and life over the American worldview of profit motive and commodification. More specifically, author Nick Estes discusses the history of the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota peoples of the Missouri River area and their ongoing fight against attempts to destroy their nations, identities, and connections to the land. From the theft of the Black Hills (i.e. “Mt. Rushmore”), to the construction of dams that flooded Indian lands and displaced thousands, to the vicious expansionist wars and genocidal acts of the late 19th Century, to militant AIM movement and most recently, the fight against the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines, Indigenous resistance is ongoing, vibrant, and inspiring. This book introduces many concepts that are probably unfamiliar to non-Indigenous peoples, and also details the fight for recognition of nationhood by the many Indigenous peoples who fought and continue to fight against American imperialism.
  
  Many people believe that Native American nations were destroyed and resistance was crushed long ago (most notably, at “Wounded Knee”). Nick Estes shows that this is not true. The LandBack movement and the fights against pipeline construction in Native territories demonstrate that radical Indigenous resistance is alive and well, and is still oriented toward protecting national sovereignty—and perhaps more importantly—the connection Indigenous peoples have with their “non-human kin” (the land and animals). This is an excellent introduction to the Native American worldview and the historical account of their movement to usher in total decolonization.
  
• 
  Graham Cifelli

  There is a lot of history here thats presented really quick. While I did wish some points (The organizing history of AIM specifically for me) were covered in more depth, nothing was out of context. Written beautifully. Necessary read, my new favorite nonfiction
• 
  Christopher Moltisanti's Windbreakers fan

  “Nevertheless, knowledge alone has never ended imperialism”
• 
  rosalind

  [read for environmental lit] listened to this on audio; this is one of those books where audio is just me getting the book at first glance/making me actually finish it. i’m sure i’ll be coming back to it many times. we were only assigned the first two chapters & the prologue for my class, in the interest of The Survey, but i ended up reading the whole thing, bc it’s Really Fucking Good.
  
  this book is a history of oceti sakowin activism and resistance, particularly in the 19th & 20th centuries & at standing rock during #nodapl, obv. it’s also about world-building, community-making, and various solidarities. it’s about where those solidarities fail, too, and why they do.
  
  estes says so many things that it seems like it takes other theorists entire books to say. & ofc working through it is important, but i really want to emphasize this as both a great scholarly work and a work which would be really good in an “intro to social justice” context, because it does say a lot of those things—but always in the context of indigeneity and native rights, which contemporary environmentalism does not prioritize or look to nearly as much as it should. (in general, i’d argue that leftists don’t look to the subaltern or treat decolonization as not just a branch theory but a way you need to live your life to make the world better, bc nobody wants to give up their comfy ivory towers and do some praxis. sigh.) and estes avoids resorting to ideological binaries and hierarchies while working towards a distinct political aim, which is something that’s rare in a text as coherent and accessible as our history is the future. also his treatment of queerness is *chef’s kiss*
  
  i’ll probably add more to this review at some point, bc i’m definitely going to return to this book, but i’d like to emphasize one quote: “Poverty was only a symptom of the root problem: colonialism.” because like. shit. yeah. wish i could force the entire us political establishment to get that tattooed on their eyeballs.
• 
  Sarah

  I really appreciated this book connecting indigenous resistance to DAPL to the long history of indigenous resistance to US government and private actions aimed at takeover of indigenous land, particularly among the Oceti Sakowin (Lakota, Dakota, Nakota). Estes also links indigenous activism in the US to indigenous movements globally, including to Palestine, which was of personal relevance to me, and I learned from Estes' take on similarities and differences between the two resistance movements. Good read (or listen) if you're interested in land, resistance movements, or indigenous communities.
• 
  Elizabeth OH

  THE UNITED STATES IS A SETTLER COLONIAL STATE.
• 
  Jibrilus Bibliothécus

  (🇨🇵 plus bas) A good book to see the other side of the story, and what has happened since the big battles. Because no, the struggle is not over. Racist colonialism is still the official policy, and native nations are still resisting it. Read it : history too needs decolonizing.
  
  Un bon bouquin pour avoir l'autre version des faits, et ce qui s'est passé depuis les grandes batailles. Parce que non, la lutte n'est pas éteinte. Le colonialisme raciste est toujours la doctrine officielle, et les nations natives lui résistent toujours. Lisez-le : l'histoire aussi à besoin de se décoloniser.
• 
  Joe

  I read this book cover to cover. Then immediately read it again. Estes' touchstone is NoDAPL for several centuries of indigenous history and resistance, several centuries of settler colonialism and genocide. This book clarifies the ways in which this oppression has been continuous and evolving, from killing indigenous people, to destroying their food sources, to using dams to destroy their land, to the current strategy of outsourcing pollution to indigenous lands at gunpoint. Crucially, Estes also delineates an evolving tradition of resistance based in values outside and opposition to the settler episteme, including a capacious sense of relationally. Estes provides powerful correctives to settler versions of history while also populating this book with indigenous leaders, thinkers, and historians (Pte Ska Win, Zitkala-Ša, Charles Eastman).
  
  It's easy to say but also true: this book profoundly changed the way I think about American history and what liberation must mean in an American (and global) context. Everyone should read it. Yup.
  
  Estes also a knack for concise summary that underscores events' significance and a marvelous ability to make ideas stick. Just a few examples from the final chapter, it's clarion call: "While corporations take on legal personhood under current US law, Water Protectors personify water and enact kinship to the water, the river, enforcing a legal order of their own. If the water, a relative, is not protected, then the river is not free, and neither are its people" (256); "For the earth to live, capitalism must die. / Hecetu welo!" (How's that for the final two sentences of a book?); "By design, the Pick-Sloan Plan was a destroyer of nations."
• 
  Pat Rolston

  This will be eye opening for most as there are few histories of America’s indigenous people with such extensive research supporting the narrative. Once again I was woefully ignorant of history of the loosing side. Many times I have thought myself sufficiently knowledgeable of this subject from biographies such as , Black Elk Speaks, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, History of the Lons Star State, and other revolutionary war histories that discussed indigenous peoples. None were focused solely on the long arc of historical subjugation and suppression that captured the post WWII through 2018 period.
  
  This is extraordinary detailed history of the protest movement coupled with activism internationally that reveals how our government’s imperial adventurism has treated native indigenous people as foreign invaders and assigned them that status. It has resulted in outrageous acts of violence and criminal theft of private lands from these folks on a massive scale. This may sound naive and it is, but the scope of this activity will shock most people reading this book.
  
  It is critical that our country understands that might doesn’t make right and the self aggrandizing view of America is a singularly biased towards the victors. Racism will never be conquered by propaganda, but healing can begin with honest self assessment in light of the focused lens of indigenous history.
• 
  Juliette

  This tells the history of indigenous resistance movements within the United States. Starting with a prologue about the movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the author takes us back to the first years of colonialism and traces the land rights movements of indigenous people.
  
  History often stops talking about indigenous peoples after colonizers arrive. Estes shows the much longer history of indigenous peoples’ fight, all the way up until the present day.
  
  I had heard of barely any of this history, and it was wonderful to finally learn it. Indigenous peoples have fought against the classification of land as private property and resisted countless efforts to stamp out their way of life, most notably the Carlisle boarding school, which took children and sought to cut them off from their culture.
  
  It exposes the dark side of the Obama administration, when Obama ignored indigenous protests against the DAP and allowed police brutality against them to go unchecked. This is something rarely talked about among liberal circles.
  
  It’s a highly important book discussing historical events that hardly anyone knows about, written in a way that holds your attention. I am grateful to my library for picking this book as it’s monthly read.
• 
  Joy Messinger

  [5 stars] A retelling of the Indigenous-led actions to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the decades of Indigenous movement building that led to the Standing Rock Reservation encampment. Nick Estes combines his own conversations and recollections during the #NoDAPL actions with oral and written history of Indigenous resistance against settler colonialism and US government genocide, with gender justice, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, environmental justice, and anti-militarism analysis woven throughout. The chapters on Red Power and Internationalism were especially powerful, chronicling Indigenous nations' efforts for sovereignty and international recognition alongside freedom fighters from Puerto Rico, Palestine, and other occupied countries. Highly recommended for everyone, especially those who want to learn more about the Indigenous nations of the Upper Midwest, my fellow anti-war / anti-imperialism / anti-militarism folks because (as we know) those forces haven't been and still aren't just being used abroad, and anyone currently living on stolen Indigenous land.
  
  Goodreads Challenge: 68/90
• 
  Chandler Sanchez

  4.2/5
  Definitely a history that more Americans should be aware of, and one that is incredibly resonant in this political and environmental moment. Estes takes a look at the continuous anti-colonial struggle of indigenous peoples (largely plain tribal nations), using various important case studies to construct a legible testimony to the ongoing struggle against a colonial US. Personally, I wish I’d read it physically rather than audio book so that I could keep better track of the people/organizations throughout, and I think that, though the price is well organized, it could be a little bit more pointed (or have a more clear argument) during the middle section of this book.
• 
  Andy

  An outstanding work of research and presentation of Standing Rock in the long history of capitalism and settler colonialism in the US deploying its culture of extractivism, exploitation, and death world to the Inidgenous human and nonhuman beings of this place.
• 
  Pam

  This book serves as a useful overview of Native American history and resistance, but for my taste, was too dry and lacked the stories that make history come alive.
• 
  Jordan Lombard

  This is such an important book, it’s a must read for all Americans. A concise history lesson about the stealing of Indigenous land by the white people that began hundreds of years ago and continues to this very day. A story of literal genocide happening over hundreds of years within the United States. America can’t be great again because we were never great to begin with and we’ve still not dragged our sorry ass out of the racist mud pit.
  
  This is a sad story looking at the US government and what we’ve done. It’s very angering, knowing we are still refusing to do anything, that our “apologies“ are so feeble as to be buried deep in another document and unheard, that we boycotted UN meetings about racism(how childish can our government and media get?!), that we finally acknowledged stealing the Black Hills only to offer money in their place(the Black Hills were never for sale!), and that we do everything possible to save the land of white settlers but flood Indigenous land and seek to put oil pipelines through it without their consent. It’s disgusting is what it is. The fact that we boycotted those meetings on racism in the 1970s speaks volumes all by itself.
• 
  Brad

  This work focuses on legal and armed struggles in tandem and exposes the workings of colonialism in both, with particular focus on the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty as the harbinger of an ongoing legacy.
  
  In spite of the title, the DAPL is mentioned relatively briefly, usually as a backdrop to the historical analysis in this work. It is touched on to connect that history to more recent struggles, tracing political (and genealogical) lines.
  
  A powerful, visceral account and condemnation of primitive accumulation, connecting the struggle against settler colonialism to the struggle against capitalism in a way that far too many contemporary parties fail to do.
• 
  Leila Braun

  I read this book right after reading Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous People's History of the United States. Overall, I found Estes' book to be far more informative and engaging than that of Ortiz. I really appreciated its emphasis on Indigenous resistance (as opposed to victimization), found it to be thoroughly researched and well-written, and thought it offered a nuanced historical narrative of how #NoDAPL relates to centuries of Indigenous resistance and organizing. Read this book!
• 
  Tara Engel

  This is a hard book to review. This book is amazing for hearing the history of events you are not taught in school. It is however formatted so packed with the facts and citings that it took away from my ability to want to keep picking it up. Storytelling is a huge part of the Lakota culture and I would of liked to have read more of the elders retelling of their stories and the stories of the younger generation who chose to resist DAPL.
• 
  Cade

  INCREDIBLE INCREDIBLE INCREDIBLE ‼️‼️‼️ holy fuck
• 
  Jill

  Appreciate the library display for making me pick this one up! Gives very in depth historical context but wish it had a bit more reporting on present day (expected bit more based on title?)
• 
  James Bechtel

  My comments here will be about "Our History is the Future" by Nick Estes (2019) and "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee" by David Treuer (2019). Both books are an intriguing combination of history, journalism (and by journalism, I mean advocacy journalism/political activist journalism), and memoir. The subject matter in both books is almost identical: survival and 'the long tradition of Indigenous resistance.' The reader can easily detect points of agreement on facts and interpretations as well as clear differences in what are still controversial topics. I hope we can all agree that the history of America is the history of conquest. We live with and are responsible for the political, economic, social, and environmental legacies of that conquest - legacies that are continuing today. How do we resist? How do we liberate/transform ourselves and our situation? These authors force us to confront our present and our future.
  
  However, we can make a comparison in two topics that demonstrate disagreements - maybe they are not all that important but I will let you decide. 1. Standing Rock Water Protectors/DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) 2. The case of Leonard Peltier in the 1970s and the American Indian Movement (AIM).
  
  Standing Rock Water Protectors vs. DAPL. In Treuer's book see pages 432 to about 442. For Estes, certainly all of Chapter One and other areas. How was the pipeline given final permission to cross through the reservation? The reader gets a more complex version of events from Treuer than from Estes. For Treuer, the reservation's political/legal strategy was flawed. Did Standing Rock deliberately refuse to negotiate with Energy Transfer Partners (DAPL) and the Army Corps of Engineers for an acceptable route for the pipeline until it was too late and final decisions were made? And, should the legal challenges have been based on alleged violations of different federal laws? It is unclear. You won't find this discussion in the Estes book. All differences aside, Treuer and Estes are deeply committed to the Water Protectors. Looks like we need to do more research
  
  Leonard Peltier/AIM. For Treuer see pages 350-360. Estes pages 64-5 and page 195. Peltier, a member of AIM, is currently incarcerated for the murder of two FBI agents in the 1970s. Barack Obama denied clemency to him. Was his conviction legitimate? Is his case another example of the FBI manufacturing evidence, lying, and persecution? Is Peltier a political prisoner/victim of a gross human rights violation based on his activism? Treuer admits there is a lot of uncertainty, but narrates some of Peltier's life and the context of the two agent's death, and seems to fall on the side that the conviction may be legitimate. Estes says it's all false. Estes offers no footnotes or citations of sources for page 195. However, a page or two later on another subject, he mentions Peter Matthiessen's book "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse" - a defense of Peltier. Looks like more research needs to be done here too.
  
  All in all - two important books.
  
  Many thanks to Brianna for drawing my attention to Nick Estes's very compelling book!
• 
  Tom Crehore

  This book serves many purposes. It is a family history, an Indigenous history, a political, economic, and cultural history, and a text that defines sovereignty, independence, and governance in a way I had never been taught or thought about. Each chapter discusses a different aspect of tragedy and hope in the experiences of the Oceti Sakowin and other Indigenous people here on Turtle Island.
  If "Water is Life," that inspiration is used in the writing. Each sentence and paragraph flows into the next, and each page and chapter is structured in clear, elegant, journalistic (and persuasive) language. There is so much in this book I didn't know or understand before. Everyone who has an interest in the KeystoneXL and the #NoDAPL movements should read this, to understand that this current era is part of a brutal pattern, so much deeper, complex, and depressing than I once thought.
  However, hope is evident in these pages. Also, I have not read a book where the title has been so important to the content. If you can read the end of the "War" chapter and your eyes are not swimming with tears when the title is so powerfully used, you need to start over again. Every page is worth reading. Every page is required reading if you care about justice.
• 
  Kim Kulesza

  I'm trying to read more works by Native American authors, so this is my second book since starting this endeavor. This book made me angry, but in a positive way. This highlighted the tribulations Native Americans, particularly out in the Plains, have had to undergo since European settlers arrived in North America. There were many parts of the U.S.'s history of expansion that are either glorified or glossed over in typical history classes, and this book highlighted the reality of what expansionism does to the people who are already there and that history does not discuss much. Such a powerful book about Native resistance!
• 
  Serenity

  “It was more than a battle for the present; it was a battle for the future.”
  
  This books is very well researched and does an excellent job of connecting indigenous history to the present. Indigenous knowledges, ways of life, and acts of resistance were at the heart of this book. I had a hard time not highlighting everything.
  
  The book spans a long period of time and goes in-depth into the the “who” of the history. While I think it is valuable to name people and groups who are often left out of historical narratives, I personally had a hard time reading it at some points because of the name-dropping.