Reflection on Killing Custer By James Welch

For me, the sections that we read about the Plains Indians and the Indian Wars in Kiiling Custer explained a complicated situation of racialization, miscommunication, pride and (dis)honor.  Though it was very clear that the United States government needed to obtain the land occupied by the Plains Indians, it was unclear how exactly the nation wanted this to occur, and action seemed to be taken without any consensus, led by the militarism that had forged so much of the national identity so far.  In the same way, I thought that the Indians too understood what they wanted: to be respected as a culture, and to be able to live as freely as possible, though the many different nations that comprised the whole of the Plains Indians had so many different ideas about what was best for their tribes and peoples that again, a lack of consensus led directly to confrontation with the white America.

In particular, I enjoyed the writing style of the author, and thought that the bias that it could be said to have was obvious and informative to the overall story.  The minority viewpoint (in this case, the viewpoint of the Indians who effectively “lost” the war, their land, and significant pieces of their identities), is inherently thought of as biased, because its not what we are used to hearing, and it was not the story that was constructed for us to believe in.  Especially in the context of the 4^th chapter, I thought that the author’s narrative about the Custer Battlefield National Monument, and the change to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, brought to light many of the fact that many of the issues that plagued Native Americans in the past continue to be serious issues today.  To me the discussion highlighted that Native Americans still serve a specific purpose to the nation today, and their identities are still left outside of the national construction.  Though the monument was on land that belonged to the Crows, Americans were outraged that they had the ability to close the roads.  Likewise, the author points out that Indians from all over America come to the site to show their children that something good happened to their people on that place, and that life on the reservations today, unless that reservation offers gambling, is incredibly bleak and difficult. 

In sum, I thought that the book both offered a new viewpoint to the history of both Americas relationship to the Indians, as well as the way the nation was forged through war.  Important questions about Indian and American identity in the present are raised as well, asking whether or not reservation life and government paternalism of Indian people creates an effective relationship for the two groups in the future.