Among his people Vine Deloria Jr. has achieved a status somewhat similar to that of Sitting Bull's leadership of the Sioux tribes a century ago. Deloria is not a warrior ("The time for playing cowboys and Indians is over," he said recently) but is more the strategist—the thinker and the planner…. What Deloria wants is affirmative action by the U.S. Congress to define Indian tribes as smaller nations to be left alone to run their own affairs….

"Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties" is not only the best account yet written of events leading to Wounded Knee 1973, it is also a compelling argument for a reopening of the treaty-making procedure between Indian tribes and the U.S. Government; an action which the author is convinced would place this country in the forefront of civilized nations for its treatment of native peoples.

In presenting a historical background for events of the past decade, Deloria chides chroniclers of the Indian wars who believe that the first Wounded Knee (1890) marked the end of the Indian struggle to preserve national identity. The fighting has continued all these years, Deloria maintains, but without feathered war bonnets and slashing cavalry swords….

Deloria also admonishes the New Left of the 1960's for regarding Indians as another domestic minority group. He says the Indians do not see themselves as such; they believe that their struggle is of historical significance, not a temporary domestic discontent….

Deloria traces the rapid rise of the protest movement among Indians—from the Poor Peoples March of 1968 through the Red Power rallies and the birth of the American Indian Movement to the occupation of Alcatraz…. Expressing regret over the errors made there, he moves on to the dramatic Trail of Broken Treaties caravan that swept across America in 1972….

["Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties" will] likely become a permanent source book for Indian historians….

"The Indian Affair," although in some parts a condensation of the longer "Broken Treaties," is also an excellent historical account of legal devices used by the United States to deprive Indians of their lands and rights, with emphasis on the 20th century. Of special interest are the chapters on churches and social change and Indian education today—activities with which Deloria has been closely involved.