'Our History Is The Future' Puts Standing Rock In Broader Native American Story
In his new book, Nick Estes points a way forward, with solidarity and without sentimentality, to an idea of Indigenous land alive with ancestry and renewal.
Modern Indigenous American history is a history of resistance. It's often assumed that Indigenous resistance to white settlers and enterprisers is often considered an act of self-defense, when it was — and is — also a battle between starkly different value systems.
For the Oceti Sakowin, or Sioux Nation, resistance is not just based on a claim to land that invaders have sought to usurp and exploit; it's also about what "land" means. In Our History Is The Future, Nick Estes poignantly describes an idea of what land means from an Indigenous perspective:
"During the last ice age, massive glaciers carved up the land. After the ice retreated, it left rolling hills and
