Prairie Man
The Struggle between Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
One week after the infamous June 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn, when news of the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry troops reached the American public, Sitting Bull became the most wanted hostile Indian in America. He had resisted the United States’ intrusions into Lakota prairie land for years, refused to sign treaties, and called for a gathering of tribes at Little Big Horn. He epitomized resistance.
Sitting Bull’s role at Little Big Horn has been the subject of hundreds of historical works, but while Sitting Bull was in fact present, he did not engage in the battle. The conflict with Custer was a benchmark to the subsequent events. There are other battles than those of war, and the conflict between Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin was one of those battles. Theirs was a fight over the hearts and minds of the Lakota.
U.S. Government policy toward Native Americans after Little Big Horn was to give them a makeover as Americans after finally and firmly displacing them from their lands. They were to be reconstituted as Christian, civilized and made farmers. Sitting Bull, when forced to accept reservation life, understood who was in control, but his view of reservation life was very different from that of the Indian Bureau and its agents. His people’s birth right was their native heritage and culture. Although redrawn by the Government, he believed that the prairie land still held a special meaning of place for the Lakota. Those in power dictated a contrary view – with the closing of the frontier, the Indian was challenged to accept the white road or vanish, in the case of the Lakota, that position was given personification in the form of Agent James McLaughlin. This book explores the story within their conflict and offers new perspectives and insights.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Legal scholar Matteoni tells the sweeping, devastating story of the decline of Sioux power in the latter half of the 19th century. From the 1860s through the 1880s, Sitting Bull, a spiritual Hunkpapa Lakota warrior, fought an increasingly futile battle to preserve his people's way of life. Though the story's flow is often marred by an over-use of block quotes and the unnecessary use of reconstructed dialogue, Matteoni has a knack for describing the various armed confrontations of this time period, particularly the famous 1876 battle of Little Big Horn. The first half of the book belongs to Sitting Bull; his eventual nemesis, James McLaughlin, does not come fully into view until 1881, when he accepted the position of Indian agent at the Standing Rock Agency in the Dakota Territory. Despite being backed by the power of the U.S. government, McLaughlin was overshadowed by Sitting Bull when the warrior arrived at McLaughlin's agency in 1883. There, the two men clashed for more than six years over who had the right to speak for and lead the Sioux. Though McLaughlin ultimately prevailed, Matteoni's book will remind readers why Sitting Bull has become such an important historical figure. Illus.
