Greed

One of the most common themes in "God is Red: A Native View of Religion" by Vine Deloria, Jr. is greed. Ever since Columbus "discovered" America, it has been the practice of many settlers and pioneers to take land away from the Native Americans and to persecute, torture, and/or murder in order to profit from that which belonged to the Native Americans.

Deloria gives a great number of examples in which the American Indians were forced off their land in order to make way for the settlements of whites. The theme of "forced relocation" is seen frequently in irrefutable historical fact, such as the Massacre at Wounded Knee as well as the relocation of many of the Native American tribes in California during the California Gold Rush. Other examples of forced relocation can be seen in Oklahoma and New York.

The times when the Indians refused to...