How might North American Christians who are inheritors of a pioneer-settler past work toward repair when grappling with the history of violent removal of Indigenous peoples from the land their ancestors claimed as home? For author Christian A. Scharen, this story became personal when he learned that not only had his own family story been immortalized through the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, but that the land they settled was the same land on which the Yankton Sioux family of noted theologian and activist Vine Deloria Jr. had lived for generations.
Scharen traces the stories of the Ingallses and the Delorias, weaving together a vibrant narrative of origins, myths, land theft, and the complicated theologies that have governed our oppressive pasts--and that may offer alternative frameworks for a more faithful future. Custer Died for Our Sins offers the inheritors of pioneer settlement theological grounding to speak the complicated truth of the past and present, even--perhaps especially--when it is unsettling. Above all, settler inheritors must revive the virtue of curiosity as their ever-present posture, while seeking repair of North America's painful settler-Indigenous history.
Through thoughtful case studies, readers will find concrete resources to move past regret toward practical actions that repair relationships and stories, creating the possibility of finding healing together on the lands we now share.
