Vine deloria

Vine Deloria, Jr. March 26, — November 13, was an a Native American author , theologian , historian , and political activist from the Yankton Sioux tribe of South Dakota. He became one of the most prolific writers on American Indian rights and culture with nearly 25 books and hundreds of articles.

Vine deloria bering strait

During the time when predominantly black-white civil rights issues were dominating the American political scene, Deloria, Jr. He worked to document treaty and sovereignty laws and developed arguments for interpreting federal Indian law in favor of self-determination by tribal governments, often testifying before the U. Congress or the U.

Supreme Court. Several of his scholarly texts are now used as standard works in Indian law and policy classes throughout the United States. His legal advocacy for Native Americans led to the return of millions of acres of tribal land, established the national tribal college structure and reaffirmed the United States' treaty and trust obligations to Native people.

As a historian, he promoted Native science as superior to conflicting Western views. And as an advocate, he worked on countless initiatives, legislative and otherwise, to protect sacred sites, ancestral remains and artifacts , and the federal-tribal relationship. In he was hailed as "one of the 11 great religious thinkers of the twentieth century" by Time.