In his book titled "The Dakota of the Canadian Northwest Lessons for Survival", Peter Douglas Elias explores the history of the Dakota (Sioux) people from the position of the Dakota people themselves. Based on many documentary sources and the expertise of Robert Goodvoice, a tribal historian of the M'dewakontonwon and Wahpetonwon Dakota, Elias is able to provide a sound and valid argument for the Dakota's entitlement to aboriginal and diplomatic rights in Canada. Elias not only manages to successfully provide the Dakota people with an unequivocal written text of their past failures and accomplishments, but achieves his goal of dispelling many of the assumptions that plague them to this day.

In his study, Elias states that many of the assumptions placed on the Dakota people were due to the fact that they were never truly recognized as a nation with whom the crown was obliged to seek treaties...