Vine Deloria Jr. and Indigenous Americans

• Published in: Wicazo Sa Review
• Main Author: Wilkins, David E.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: UR Scholarship Repository 2006
• Subjects: tirbal sovereignty; countries; government; Vine Deloria Jr; Native Americans; prose; 1900-1999; American literature; Native American authors; Indigenous; Indian; and Aboriginal Law; Leadership Studies; First Nations
• Online Access: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/jepson-faculty-publications/273; https://doi.org/10.1353/wic.2006.0027; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/context/jepson-faculty-publications/article/1280/viewcontent/Vine_Deloria_Jr_and_Indigenous_to_Upload.pdf

Vine Deloria Jr., a Standing Rock Sioux citizen, widely considered the leading indigenous intellectual of the past century, walked on in November 2005. Deloria spent most of his adult life in an unrelenting, prodigious, and largely successful effort to provide those most grounded of Native individuals and their governments with the intellectual, theoretical, philosophical, and substantive arguments necessary to support their inherent personal and national sovereignty. Importantly, however, his voluminous work also sought to improve the nation-to-nation and intergovernmental relationships of and between First Nations, and between First Nations and non-Native governments at all levels. In fact, he was hailed in 1974 by Time magazine as a "Theological Superstar of the Future," and he received numerous awards from both Indian and non-Indian organizations throughout his life, including, most recently in January 2005, the American Indian Visionary Award from the leading Indian newspaper Indian Country Today.