Nick Estes did not intend to write a book about Standing Rock. He was working on his dissertation about Indigenous rights at the United Nations when the movement against the Dakota Access pipeline exploded on the edge of one of the 16 northern Plains Indian reservations of the Oceti Sakowin people, known by the U.S. government as the Sioux. Estes, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe who grew up in South Dakota, felt he had little choice but to change his plans. He traveled home to the Dakotas and wrote much his book sitting on his aunt’s couch, drawing on oral histories shared by elders and relatives and cross-referencing them with archival documents.
Comments