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Pontiac, Sequoyah, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, and Chief Seattle. These legendary names are familiar even to the uninitiated in Native American history, yet the life stories of these great spiritual leaders have been largely unknown.

In this, his last book, internationally celebrated author Frank Waters makes vivid the poignant, humorous, and tragic stories of these neglected and heroic Native Americans. From the brilliant tactical abilities of famed warriors to the eloquent oratory of indigenous philosophers, poets, and statesmen, the profiles in Brave Are My People help correct this error of omission.

Now in paperback, Brave Are My People represents a major contribution to Water’s remarkable literary work.

“In addition to his accomplishments as a talented novelist, a thorough historian, and an excellent essayist, Frank Waters is that rare breed of man who has merged heart and mind early in his life and moved forward to confront ultimate questions. This dilemma of faith and heritage, religion and identity, and commitment and comfort has never been resolved intellectually. Even with profound faith and rigorous discipline of self, mystics have found it difficult to resolve through action and prayer…I look at the life and writing of Frank Waters…and find…a remarkable journey of inquiry spanning nearly a century and illuminating questions which I did not think possible to formulate.”

—Vine Deloria, Jr., editor

Contributors to this volume are Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., Bobby Bridger, Steven Wall, Will Wright, William Eastlake, Larry Evers, David Jongeward, Max Evans, Win Blevins, Barbara Waters, Rudolfo Anaya, Thomas J. Lyon, Joe Gordon, Robert Kostka, Charles Adams, Father Peter J. Powell, Quay Grigg, Alexander Blackburn, and T. N. Luther.

In a 1953 effort to end the authority of local Native American governments, Congress passed Public Law 83-280. Allowing states to apply their criminal and civil laws to Native American country, the law provided an unparalleled opportunity for the state of South Dakota to crush burgeoning Lakota nationalism.
 
Edward Valandra's Not Without Our Consent documents the tenacious and formidable Lakota resistance to attempts at applying this law. In unprecedented depth, it follows their struggle through the 1950s when, against all odds, their resistance succeeded in the amendment of PL 83-280 to include Native consent as a prerequisite to state jurisdiction. The various House and Senate bills discussed in the manuscript are reproduced in five appendices.