Well, Ebbie, the cult of the "noble savage" goes a long way back. There were always some white people who saw the Indians in that context, and in some cases they romanticized them out of all reason.

An interesting read is Ernest Thompson Seaton's "The Gospel of the Red Man". Seaton was convinced he had been an Indian in a previous life, and he greatly admired their culture and spoke in defence of it. I have always felt much the same as he did...Indians were my heroes from the earliest age. I suspect he was an Indian in another life, but I'm not gonna argue with anyone about it. ;-)

Most of the movies and TV shows I saw as a kid had the Indians there just to provide "bad guys" for the good guys to shoot at, but there were some exceptions. A few. The Errol Flynn movie in the 40's was one of the first to make some attempt to depict how corrupt politicians and businessmen had stolen Indian land and provoked Indian wars...but it totally whitewashed Custer's personal role in what happened.

Custer was an anachronism. He seemed to only really be in his full element when in battle or on the trail to martial glory (a bit like George Patton in a later era?), and I get the feeling from biographical material that he was about as regretful of the free and open days of the Plains Indians coming to an end as any white man was...because it meant an end to the adventurous life he craved. For him to die in that battle was just about perfect. The life he enjoyed living the most was almost over anyway. His wife Libby, however, missed him terribly, and she seems to have spent the rest of her days doing everything possible to lend lustre to his legend. She'd be very upset with the contemporary revisionist views of her darling now, I'm afraid. ;-)

I've read several of those books you mention, Stilly, back when I was in my 20's. I never did read the Mari Sandoz one, though, or the Vine Deloria one, though I was aware of them being around.

Another book about the Indians I enjoyed greatly was "Seven Arrows" by Hyemeyosts Storm, and there was another about Crazy Horse called "Great Upon the Mountain".