Custer Died For Your Sins Essay

There are two books that are particularly important for students learning about Native Americans to read, Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria and “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker. But before even reading the books, its vital to understand who the authors are. What their backgrounds are, who they wrote the book for and why, and arguably the most important: their authority to be writing the books. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to fully understand a book, since an author ingrains pieces of themselves into everything they write. The author of the first book Custer Died for Your Sins is Vine Deloria. He is a man with a long and very extensive past, which includes numerous higher education schooling, and even a portion of time in the US Marines. However, some parts of his past are more relevant than others in
Starting with Roxanne, she got her Doctorates in history at the University of Los Angeles. She then worked as an activist, and traveled extensively within the United States, Europe, Mexico and Cuba for her work (Locklear-Bilek 1). Dina, the co-author, earned her MA in American studies from the University of New Mexico. She now does research for the Center of World Indigenous Studies (Locklear-Bilek 1). Both women have plenty of credibility from their education and pasts to write this book. According to Locklear-Bilek says that the main reason of them writing the book is to “dispel the most common and some not so common myths about Native Americans,” basically to “expose common myths” to the general public and show them where their thinking goes wrong (Locklear-Bilek 1). The book is unique for how they wrote it, being that the chapters are short and concise, and there is a mix of formal and informal