Plains Indians and resistance to "public" heritage commemoration of their pasts

Abstract

Colonialist cultures readily and even painstakingly have commemorated events from their own histories. Historic landmarks and statues mark battles where their militaries celebrated glorious victories and even where their soldiers were gallant in defeat against overwhelming odds. They also have preserved and interpreted for posterity key nonmilitary events or places in their historical master narrative. As they moved toward a postcolonial position, some have been willing to memorialize episodes and places where those they colonized valiantly resisted conquest, indeed, where the colonizer even may have committed atrocities. © 2007 Springer-Verlag New York.