by James C. Olson (1975)
From the mid-1860s until the end of organized resistance on the Great Plains, Red Cloud, the noted Oglala Sioux, epitomized for many the Indian problem. Centered on Red Cloud's career, this is an admirably impartial, circumstantial, and rigorously documented study of the relations between the Sioux and the United States government during the years after the Civil War.
Helen Hunt Jackson
Originally published over 100 years ago, A Century of Dishonor is Helen Jackson’s eye- opening sketch of the U.S. government’s often shameful mishandling of what was called the “Indian problem”. Using official documents as authentic research materials, Jackson asserts that the government and citizens of the United States were the cause of the “problems”, and not the Native peoples.
Robert W. Larson
Red Cloud was not born to leadership. He earned it. In his early years he gained a reputation for fierceness as a warrior and as a tactician against both whites and other Indian tribes. And in his middle years, his leadership against the U.S. Army in the Powder River country, his forcing the closure of the Bozeman Trail, and his strong pressure to negotiate the favorable outcome of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 made him the preeminent chief among the Sioux. In his later years, Red Cloud was an intermediary for his people in their dealings with the U.S. government. Although his motives at times were questioned, he steadfastly resisted encroachments on Sioux land during the reservation period, and he consistently protested the pressure by market-oriented whites to impose an agrarian economy on a people who had never farmed. Red Cloud's passionate belief in the values of his culture prevented him from acting as a culture broker; nevertheless, he remained an important figure of the Gilded Age.
Henry F. De Puy
Identifies and lists a brief synopsis of the many treaties entered into between the American Indians and the English colonies. Contained within the work are original sources of information of some of the most important events connected with the settlement of the United States and its land titles.
Peter Matthiessen
An investigative account of the fatal shootout between FBI agents and American Indians in 1975. On a hot June morning in 1975, a desperate shoot-out between FBI agents and Native Americans near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, left an Indian and two federal agents dead. Four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges, and one, Leonard Peltier, was convicted and is now serving consecutive life sentences in a federal penitentiary. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance, brilliantly explicated by Peter Matthiessen in this controversial book. Kept off the shelves for eight years because of one of the most protracted and bitterly fought legal cases in publishing history, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse reveals the Lakota tribe's long struggle with the U.S. government, and makes clear why the traditional Indian concept of the earth is so important at a time when increasing populations are destroying the precious resources of our world.--From publisher description.