Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre

by Heather Cox Richardson

On December 29, 1890, American troops opened fire with howitzers on hundreds of unarmed Lakota Sioux men, women, and children near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing nearly 300 Sioux. As acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson shows in Wounded Knee , the massacre grew out of a set of political forces all too familiar to us fierce partisanship, heated political rhetoric, and an irresponsible, profit-driven media.Richardson tells a dramatically new story about the Wounded Knee massacre, revealing that its origins lay not in the West but in the corridors of political power back East. Politicians in Washington, Democrat and Republican alike, sought to set the stage for mass murder by exploiting an age-old political tool—fear.Assiduously researched and beautifully written, Wounded Knee will be the definitive account of an epochal American tragedy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Politics, Native American, Native American History, Native Americans

392 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College and an expert on American political and economic history. She is the author of seven books, including the award-winning How the South Won the Civil War. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets. Her widely read newsletter, Letters from an American, synthesizes history and modern political issues.

Reviews

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than half my lifetime ago, when I was only 31 years old, I read the first of what would eventually be many dozens of books about Native American history. The book was the one that is probably the best known of that genre: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. The stories it told of state-sponsored cruelty, oppression, and mistreatment of the various tribes and individuals were shocking, and to me they were also spell-binding and infuriating.

However, I was left puzzled by the very short chapter at the end of the book which summarized the final military operation against (actually, a massacre of) Native Americans at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. What really went on there? Why was a massive mobilization of troops called up against such a small number of freezing, starving, and mostly unarmed Indians? Why did the local citizenry become so frightened by these impoverished people (of course, part of it was the mere fact that they were of a different culture and skin color) who merely danced and wore special shirts as acts of faith in their Messiah-based religion? The few pages in that final chapter left my curiosity far from being satisfied.

Finally, all these years later, I came upon Heather Cox Richardson's meticulously researched book about the whole episode – especially all the background that really led to it. It is a story about party politics – about one party's devious schemes to achieve and maintain power at all costs, including lying, deceit, denying rights and privileges to anyone/everyone who stands in the way, bestowing unmerited privileges (aka cronyism) on those who can help achieve the goals of power, and inciting unwarranted fear and panic among the masses in order to obtain their support.

Virtually everything that the power-hungry politicians of the 1880's did that led to the disaster at Wounded Knee is being done even more effectively and corruptly today by politicians of the same ilk.

George Washington, in his farewell address, warned America about the dangers of the rise political parties. The two-party system that has resulted as an unintended yet inherent side effect of our Constitution has proven George Washington right. Tragedies will continue as a result.

Note: I wrote this review on the day after a political and media-inspired, race-motivated mass shooting in Buffalo NY left eleven innocent black people dead. This tragedy, along with many others that have preceded it and many others that will inevitably follow it, are all consequences of the divisive politics that evil people employ to attain and maintain power in the United States.

[Ken Stampe · Rating 5 out of 5]

America is not the moral beacon we claim it to be

This is history not taught when I was in school. This is the real America. A religious ideology of morality for some at the expense of others. What our country did to native Americans is disgusting and vile. We owe it to ourselves to know our history, acknowledge it, and strive to be better today and tomorrow.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible that we did not know the whole, true story until recently. Heather Cox Richardson has changed my reading habits toward more history.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Wounded Knee Massacre,” Oscar Howe (1960)

When “Wounded Knee Massacre” was first displayed, the director of the South Dakota State Historical Society wrote, “there is not one iota of evidence to sustain the belief that there was any ordered or organized brutality” at Wounded Knee; instead, he suggested that Howe “should use his talents to depict and not distort the truth.” President Theodore Roosevelt concurred in 1910:

Indian policy [should] be blamed because of the weakness it displayed, because of its shortsightedness and its occasional leaning to the policy of the sentimental humanitarians . . . but . . . [o]ur government almost always tries to act fairly by the tribes; the governmental agents . . . are far more apt to be unjust to the whites than to the reds. (pp. 311-312)

The prevailing attitude of the 19th and 20th century painted the Sioux as aggressors and soldiers as with regard to Wounded Knee – until Eli Ricker’s decades-long interviews of soldiers, the Sioux, and eyewitnesses were discovered in the Nebraska State Historical Society library and published in 2005. Ricker concluded that the Sioux:

were attacked, wantonly, cruelly, brutally, and what little fighting they did was in self defense. The affair at W.K. was a drunken slaughter—of white soldiers and innocent Indians—for which white men were responsible—solely responsible. A little reason and patience & forbearance would have avoided the murderous clash. (p. 311)

Heather Cox Richardson wrote a masterful summary and analysis of this evidence in Wounded Knee. Relying on first person narratives, she very clearly laid blame for the Wounded Knee massacre on several factors: anger about The Battle of Little Bighorn (1876); Republican attempts to obtain a plurality by promoting statehood in the sparsely populated western states; policies that starved the Sioux and other tribes and stole their lands and livelihood; the growth of the Ghost Dance religion (“If they danced on certain nights, stopped fighting amongst themselves, and dealt honestly with all men,… their ancestors would come back from the afterworld, herding before them the vanished game that would sustain the tribes,” p. 15); impulsive and poor leadership; and fears of and failures to understand the Sioux’s worldview, language, and religion. As one chief said,

“The white man had showed neither respect for nature nor reverence toward God, but, he thought, tried to buy God with the by-products of nature. He tried to buy his way into heaven, but he did not even know where heaven is. . . . As for us, …we shall still follow the old trail.” (p. 314)

Many of the descriptions of events leading up to the Wounded Knee massacre sound familiar: voter fraud, attempts to suppress and bias the vote, political corruption, media bias, prejudice against outgroups, and significant wealth inequality. History is not always history.

I read this with my mother.

[Bull · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books of the last ten years. Should be mandatory reading for all residents of South Dakota (where I live) but also for all newscasters, politicians, political science and economics majors, and Fox “News” absorbers. An essential read to help strengthen our democracy.

[Rena Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heather Cox Richardson has very honestly, and clearly described the political, economic and social destruction of the Minneconjou and Oglala groups who were massacred at Wounded Knee. The most disturbing part of this historical account is that the over-reactionary military was given awards and promotions for murdering women and children in cold blood. Some military leaders, like William Tecumseh Sherman and Nelson Miles who made some attempts to slow or stop the military bloodshed, were blamed for the final massacre instead of listened to, and heeded.

Much of the truth of this incident has not been exposed for many years. No one believed or interviewed the surviving Minneconjou, Brule and Ogalala survivors. It was too embarrassing to the Harrison administration and to the military to admit that officers who had been promoted and given awards for saving their fellow men, were actually callow murderers.

This would make a wonderful textbook for an American history class. It is well researched, clear, organized, easy to understand and unemotionally presented. I look forward to future historical works by Ms. Richardson.

[Mary Figueroa · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read ever - I cannot believe how little I knew about this and how much I learned.

Heartbreaking and incredibly powerful.

Found everything about Pres. Harrison unfortunately very prescient:

"President Harrison had been widely castigated for running an excessively partisan administration devoted to serving big business. He had been called a fool, ineffectual, a party hack, a tool of industrialists. Opponents pointed out that he had gained the Republican presidential nomination only when a corrupt deal cut out the far better qualified and far more able Ohio senator John Sherman. They also noted that Harrison had lost the popular vote and won the White House only through the offices of the Electoral College. They went so far as to call him the most hated president in history"

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

While other accounts have told of the logistics and the sad aftermath of Wounded Knee, this book is the first I know of to deal with the electoral politics that laid the foundation for it.

Like most Americans I did not know why we have a North and South Dakota. This book tells it straight out. President Harrison and his team felt they could get 4 Republican senators (instead of 2) from the Dakota Territory. Harrison wanted/needed the expected Republican electoral votes for the 1892 presidential election, so the new states had to be created quickly. For two viable states, more land was needed. To get the land, a prior Indian treaty had to be undone. Extra-legal and dishonest means were employed to get the already defeated and demoralized Sioux to cede another half of their territory.

This, and broken promises made to get the land resulted in eventual starvation (and hence desperation and demoralization) of the Indians. Their mournful ghost dances frightened the settlers and Army. They expected a revolt. This set the stage for the Wounded Knee tragedy where frightened Indians were shot as they fled the US Army which they had neither the energy, nor the will nor the weapons to resist.

I couldn't help but note but that these times mirror our own. There were hazardous levels of speculative investment, there was a growing gap between the rich and poor, and in the mid-term elections many incumbents belonging to the party in power were booted out. Political issues such as voter suppression, government investigations with pre-determined conclusions, unqualified (political) people in important positions, under-funded social services and trigger happy law enforcement personnel were issues then as they are now.

If anyone thought dishonest journalism started with cable TV, they should check out the precedents set by "Frank Leslie's Illustrated" and the many local reporters sent to cover the Wounded Knee surrender/confrontation.

The Notes show the author's impressive use of primary sources, letters, diaries, reports, newspapers of the time and interviews of eye witnesses.

This is an excellent volume. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Native Americans and or the development of the American West.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great companion to the likes of 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'

Richardson puts a fair amount of the problems in the crosshairs of President Benjamin Harrison, with this book almost a mini-bio of his administration.

The push for admitting western territories as states, including splitting Dakota Territory into two, is one part of the problem. Richardson shows how it was compounded by the Dawes Act, pushed through during Cleveland's first administration. She shows that the "sound money"/high tariff economic bass of the Harrison Administration risked repelling western states Republicans as populist movements arose. Add in this being the era of "the rain follows the plow" hucksterism, and the era was ripe for a final push to slice Sioux lands into slivers. When the rain stopped following the plow, white farmers were hurt, and the Sioux, with fewer resources, hurt even more.

This led some Sioux to pin their hopes on the Ghost Dance. Some adopted it unadulterated; others ran it through Sioux filters.

The final spark was the latest round in conflict between War and Interior departments over Indian management, tied to Nelson Miles' ego and his inside-Washington connections by marriage. All the embers came together for a conflagration late in 1890.

[Danielle McCoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was hard to listen too. Don't get me wrong! The performance was excellent and the book was well-written. As a white American and a Christian though, I listened to the last chapters with tears running down my cheeks. Don't listen to this if you want to feel good about the past.

[Terryann Saint · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required Reading

If you are American, read this book. Interested in America? Read this book. Interested in Economics? You guessed it, read this book. Actually... If you read.. Read this book. If not, get someone to read it to you.

[Thomas Ray]

From the author's blog, December 29, 2022:

A dozen years ago, I wrote a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, and what I learned still keeps me up at night.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack...

[James Bechtel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the writing of history context is everything. What is the evidence? What does it mean? What can it tell us about the larger circumstances? What are the struggles, fights, ambiguities? What are the contingencies that impact the specific event as well as wider political, economic, and ideological developments? How do we explain, interpret, and analyze all of this? Why did the massacre happen? Heather Cox Richardson, a Professor of History at Boston College, explores all of these questions in an extraordinary investigation of America in the years centering around 1890 and the massacre at Wounded Knee. The subtitle of the book provides us with one of the major emphases of the book. There are elements of American political history here that I knew nothing about. Especially, the national political conflict between the corrupt Republican presidential administration of Benjamin Harrison and Democrats in the contest over the elections of 1890 and 1892. Republican fears of electoral defeat motivated them to push for the admission of new states (under Republican political domination) - South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming. This is the historical homeland of the Sioux and the location of their ever-diminishing reservations. Getting white settlers into these territories, making the territories states, states that will elect Republicans to office, was seen to be the way to secure control of both Congress and the presidency for the corrupt Republican Party. All enforced by the US Army. And at what cost? The Indigenous people paid a heavy price in blood at Wounded Knee. Richardson's explanation of the interactions between the Army and the Sioux is as illuminating as her exposure of political corruption. The contingent events surrounding the army, the corrupt new Republican agents, the corrupt settlers, the Sioux (especially their alteration of Wovoka's original Ghost Dance message) escalated the climate of fear on all sides of not just violence but perhaps of war. She provides a very detailed account of the massacre. It's a devastating picture done in the name of economic progress, but with a horrifying result for the Sioux and the country as a whole. Poverty, extreme economic inequality, environmental disaster, manipulation of the electoral map, party dominated media. We see such things today. Survival and the possibilities of resistance have to be a constant struggle. Five stars. This is the first of her books I have read. It will not be the last.

[Wendell Hennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

an important read with the first 100 pages discussing the economic woes of the late 19th century and the Republicans efforts to grow the economy and get President Benjamin Harrison elected. The gap between rich and poor was ever widening and tariffs imposed to protect American products provided the government with needed revenue but increased prices greatly. It was advantageous to reclaim much of Indian land in the west to enable the building of railway lines to areas that would become the new states of North and South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The Sioux were eventually convinced to give up the Black Hills which were a spiritual mystical part of their reserve, but payment was never made, promises of food parcels were never kept after the buffalo herds and traditional hunting grounds were destroyed. The Indian Affairs established a number of treaty locations but positions were staffed by friends of Republicans rather than Indians who were "too lazy".

The final 200 pages painfully details the final months of 1890 leading up to the Dec 29 Wounded Knee Massacre. Virtually every telegram back and forth between the President, Indian Affairs and the Army are recounted in endless annoying detail, confirming the level of bureaucracy and how little concern existed for the Indians. They were supposed to conform to the American Way and become farmers when that was not their history or cultural background.

The Massacre was considered a coup by the army for years despite an investigation which showed it was a poorly managed army maneuver that resulted in most of the Sioux losing their lives. It has only been in the last decade that the lifetime research of several people has swung the general population to understand the huge genocide that it was.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richardson has used an American atrocity to show how party politics affects policy development. Some of the chapters deal with the Native Americans while others cover the 'white' America of the time. It was the 'Gilded Age'. American was moving west and the unfortunate Native Americans were in the way of economic development. The Republicans under President Benjamin Harrison were advocates of a high tariff to protect industrialists and financiers. [Now Republicans want low tax rates for the wealthy]. The description of the Republicans of the 1890s is appropriate for the Republicans of today "...consummate party politicians, willing to ignore reality, manipulate government machinery to stay in power, and destroy those in the way of their plans." Throughout the work there are references to the Republican newspaper 'Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper'. It was essentially the FOX news of its time, but then most of the other papers weren't much better.
As the the massacre itself, the men who perpetrated it and the administration supporters told a vastly different story that was told by the native Americans who survived, the evidence on the ground and a few military men. In essence, the Administration report was a cover-up. However,this is a very interesting read especially as one can see that it's politics as usual for some modern political 'sects'.

[James Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Richardson keys off of the slaughter at Wounded Knee -- and tells the narrative of that day twice, as both introit and recessional. Between those tellings she outlines in tremendous detail the political machinations of the Benjamin Harrison administration, its inherent corruption (especially with regards to Indian agents), the dramatic struggle over tariff protectionism, the addition of multiple western States in order to guarantee late 19th century Republican dominance in the Senate.

The argument is that these political realities created the murderous machinery that played out at Wounded Knee in particular, and across Indian Country in general.

People (like myself) who consider Donald Trump to be the worst president in US history should bone up on Benjamin Harrison.

Students of the Ghost Dance will find extended and detailed discussions here, with reference to all available current scholarship.

Also notable is that the book relies on first person interviews conducted by Eli Ricker which weren't published until the 1980s and verified previously-discounted Indian version of the slaughter.

Excellent work. Highly recommended.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too opinionated at times, and very hard (although perhaps deservedly so?) on Benjamin Harrison and his Republican cronies, but an interesting perspective that the tragedy at Wounded Knee against the Sioux Indians was mostly motivated by party politics (less Indians meant more settlers and more settlers meant Republican voters). So while the book does a good job of going back and forth between politics and the Indian Wars, it does suffer a little in that it almost goes back and forth too much, taking away a little from each aspect of the story which perhaps both warranted greater in-depth coverage. And the politicizing of views was a little distracting too. I like my history books a little more impartial and Richardson certainly made her personal feelings obvious on the subjects that she covered.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richardsons's book is phenomenally researched and reads well. By focusing on the political aspect of the Harrison administration, she presents a facet of Wounded Knee and the Indian Wars that is usually treated only peripherally.

This book would easily be five stars if not for the same poorly researched, regurgitated version of the actual battle of Wounded Knee. Like most every author in the past 50 years, she dismisses out of hand 90% of the testimonies and documents that exist in the National Archives. She has instead given way to reproducing the Native American oral history version of events, and cherry picking only those narratives that support her view, rather than a holistic view from perspectives of participants of both sides.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

one hundred and twenty three years later and its as though we as a nation have learned nothing. This is more a book about national politics and just how a political party that is saddled with people that are self serving, short sighted and unwilling to compromise can create situations that can send the country into financial ruin, destroy lives and yet cling to the principle of "It's not our fault." After reading this book you will come away with the thought that President Harrison was truly America's worst president, bar none.

[Davina · Rating 5 out of 5]

However much things change, there are constants. This involves a tragedy where Indian Agents were replaced by Party Hacks, states were created so the Republicans could gain more Senators, and lot more besides. The battle itself takes up on a small part of the book. This tale tells the story of those whose greed, for land, for power, for wealth, all combined to create the perfect conditions for a massacre. It's a sad story, and there is an interesting account at the end of the book, of the battle, taken from the native perspective, by a Nebraska judge years after. Well worth your time.

[John Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond being a detailed and very readable account of the massacre itself, this situates Wounded Knee in American (not just Native American) history. The author makes a very convincing case that the politics of minority rule, misguided economic policies, and the conflict between the Interior and War Departments not only led directly to the massacre but made it or something like it inevitable. Reading this in 2021 and recognizing how similar the dynamics of the Harrison and Trump administrations are was just eerie.

[Jennifer Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the saddest books I’ve ever read. The Harrison administration could be what the Trump administration is using for its playbook.

[Debbie Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

So relevant to the political stress of today!

[Stew · Rating 4 out of 5]

For most Lakotas, the Wounded Massacre was just that — the ruthless slaughter of the mostly unarmed followers of Chief Big Foot on Dec. 29, 1890.
For some historians, it was either an accident — and a few even believe — a real battle where two armed sides were pitted against each other.
It is destined to be one of those tragedies that will be debated endlessly.
There have been many good blow-by-blow accounts of the events leading to the horrific incident — Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Rex Allen Smith’s Moon of Popping Trees, and George E. Hyde’s A Sioux Chronicle — are a few that come to mind.
None of them have put the incident in the larger context of national politics quite as thoroughly as University of Massachusetts at Amherst Professor of History Heather Cox Richardson does in her new book, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre.
The book covers territory readers of this newspaper are undoubtedly familiar with: the Dawes Act and its intent to remove Lakotas from land coveted by settlers; the subsequent reductions in rations that brought about starvation and disease; and the spread of the Ghost Dance religion, which was supposed to bring salvation to a society that was clearly experiencing collective trauma.
It has never been answered to my satisfaction as to who fired the first shot on that balmy winter the morning. Was it a jumpy member of the 7th cavalry? Or a Lakota warrior angered over the confiscation of his rifle?
But I’ve never believed that it mattered. The Army should not have been on the reservation in the first place. The bigger question then is why U.S. troops came to the South Dakota reservations to quell the seemingly harmless religious rituals that were part of the Ghost Dance religion? Hysteria in neighboring white communities over the perceived dangers of the dancing was certainly one factor.
So who is at fault?
In short, the Republicans, Richardson asserts.
The pro-business GOP’s appointment of Daniel F. Royer as agent, and President Benjamin Harrison’s desire to placate the voters in the newly created state of South Dakota contributed to the disaster, is one of the book’s primary themes.
To put this in the larger context, Richardson gives the reader a lesson in the party politics of the 19th Century. A very, very long lesson, and one that some readers will tire of as they try to move on to the events immediately leading up to the massacre.
To be sure, Agent Royer was the wrong man at the wrong time. A political appointee who was there to take advantage of the numerous opportunities to scam the system and line his pocket, Royer was the primary alarmist who brought the troops unnecessarily to the reservations.
Like many Democratic and Republican appointees before him, Royer had little experience dealing with Native Americans, and believed that as agent, the residents of Pine Ridge would obey his every command. When they ceased to stop performing the Ghost Dance, he sent panicky telegrams to Washington asking for troops.
The Army, under Gen. Nelson Miles, was not eager to come in and clean up the mess created by the civilians. For the military, it was another chapter in the long-standing turf war between the Army and elected officials and their political appointees over who would control reservations. The Army thought it could do a better job of lording over Native Americans.
It was also an organization in search of a mission and relevance, as Richardson points out. This was prior to American interventionist policies overseas, and the so-called “Indian Wars” were coming to an end. It was a “Frontier Army” but the frontier was disappearing. The Navy was on the ascent and the Army’s status in U.S. society in decline. Enlightening context such as this is one of valuable parts of this book.
Richardson does a good job of explaining Miles’ thinking in this regard. I personally have a hard time believing that the men once charged with tracking down, killing and subjugating Indians were the best ones for the job of administering reservations.
Indeed, one of the first orders Brig. Gen. John Brooke gave upon arriving on Pine Ridge was to lock up 100 Lakota students in a dormitory and hold them hostage in order to break the will of their parents. If the monumental disaster that is Wounded Knee isn’t enough to show how badly the Army of 1890 could fail, then this is one more small example of its officers’ autocratic ways.
I don’t need to go into detail here on the results of the political pressure and the white hysteria. It ended in a catastrophe that still reverberates on Pine Ridge today.
Aside from the aforementioned Republican history lesson that detracts from the pacing of the book, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, is well worth reading. It is also, I’m happy to report, readable. Sadly, this is not often the case with history books produced by academics. Many potentially good history books have been ruined by professors with zero flare for the written word and poor storytelling skills. That’s not the case here. Richardson’s work should satisfy academia and the general reading public who want to know more about this tragic slice of American history.
A press release that accompanied my review copy stated that the book will be the “definitive account of an epochal American Tragedy.” I doubt this will truly be the last word. Like many other infamous historical incidents, the events of Dec. 29, 1890 will be debated for years to come.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which devotes a chapter to the Wounded Knee Massacre. It will be released in paperback this fall.

[Santa Fean · Rating 5 out of 5]

People in this country ought to pay more attention to this nation’s history, for the old saying that “history repeats itself” is so very much evident with this book. The same congressional gridlock, the same gerrymandering of election districts, the same strong-arm politics by the people in power and yes, the same corruption and catering to special interests. Back in the 1880′s and 1890′s the Lakota people had to suffer in the great power play of Washington, a people without rights and without voice. Today it is the illegal immigrant. Someone just has to be made the scapegoat. Unfortunately, as time progresses, we as a nation become increasingly more ignorant and either don’t see through the schemes Washington comes up with or, worse, don’t care.
Heather Cox Richardson’s book was a great eye opener to me. Previously I had read and studied the Wounded Knee Massacre through the narrow lens by taking into the consideration only of local issues that led to this event. Taking a step back and looking at the whole picture is very revealing.

Also praise ought to be given Randy Hines’ feature article in the December 2010 issue of Wild West Magazine “Pressing the Issue at Wounded Knee” that outed media hype as one of the causes that led to the massacre.

President Benjamin Harrison’s presidency can be broadly compared to George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House. It is hard not to see numerous similarities between the two administrations and partisan politics.

Thank you Ms. Richardson for providing the reading public with your great work.


Wounded Knee

[Andrew Wehrheim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the wider political context surrounding the events leading up to, and including, the Wounded Knee Massacre. The juxtaposition of the American economic and political landscape with that of the different bands of Lakota who were struggling to survive, both literally and culturally, is something to behold and ponder.

I am no historian, but at one point I noticed that Heather Cox Richardson boils down the events surrounding Crazy Horse's surrender to, and later murder by, the US government in an overly simplistic fashion that I feel does not do justice to the history. Crazy Horse surrendered in the Spring of 1877 but wasn't murdered until September of that year. She mentions these two events together, without mentioning the important series of events in between. But of course, Crazy Horse is not the subject of her book.

In regard to her subject Richardson does a first rate job. My understanding of both the events leading up to the Wounded Knee massacre, as well as the political and economic climate in which they occurred, has been broadened immensely. After reading this I definitely sense a better historical grasp of this monumental and heartbreaking chapter in American history.

You cannot read a good history book without seeing the parallels to our own times. History repeats itself, which makes learning and understanding history such an important endeavor. The Indian Wars continue. Wounded Knee was not the end. Peter Mathiessen's book about the FBI's war on the American Indian Movement is a great follow up to this book.

[Jared Lovell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an original and well researched work. Richardson goes beyond simply detailing the account of the events at Wounded Knee to connect them back to politics and policies of the Republican party in Washington during the Benjamin Harrison administration. Very well done.

However, I do have some problems. The is lacking somewhat in its economic analysis. Richardson does spend considerable time pointing out the Republicans push for higher and higher tariffs, but in the end tends to attribute the entire debacle to partisan politics in Washington. The real problem as I see it is one of too much federal power. The massacring of the Sioux is only an extension of Republican policies begun during the Civil War. Once a standing army is in place with a means to finance it, it can be used for the political whim of any tyrant. Richardson's lack of economic understanding makes for a disappointing final chapter. In it she reveals her own hand as a partisan Progressive. She seems to carry a false dichotomy throughout the book, pitting the Indian economy of hunting and gathering and not private property against Wall St. crony capitalism. There does not seem to be room in her analysis for truly free markets and free trade and understanding of such a system.

Overall though, this book is very good and much needed. Light needs to be brought to bear on this more obscure part of our history and to the abuses of our military in the pursuit of empire.

[Imogene Drummond · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOUNDED KNEE: PARTY POLITICS AND THE ROAD TO AN AMERICAN MASSACRE by the brilliant historian Heather Cox Richardson is a deeply enlightening--and relevant--expose of one of America's most tragic and shameful events.

Context, perspective, ability to synthesize diverse threads, storytelling, and beautiful writing are Dr. Richardson's strengths. Through her meticulous research of the complex individuals, political and press machinations, and socioeconomic events that led to the Wounded Knee massacre, she engages the reader in a fascinating journey that illumines unexpected understanding. In addition to gaining knowledge about a part of American history of which I knew very little, I was gobsmacked by how relevant the dynamics of that late 19th century disaster are to today's world. I wondered how the author could end such a disturbing story that became worse the more it unfolded, including its subsequent cover-up.

Dr. Richardson is an extraordinary historian, particularly for the clarity and the meaningfulness she imbues. Her last sentence takes the story to another stratosphere. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, especially in view of today's perilous political landscape.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The late 19th century isn't my wheelhouse at all, but I think even people who aren't particularly enamored of that era will find this book interesting. People tend to treat events like Wounded Knee and other Indian massacres, and other events during the Indian Wars, as events that took place in the West and are therefore western history, and have little to do with US economic or political history. It's just an easy knee jerk reaction - we think we already know why Indian massacres took place. Richardson argues, however, that the events at Wounded Knee in 1890 can be traced directly to partisan politics in Washington. In order to understand what happened in South Dakota, we have to understand the priorities and platforms and party machinations of the Republicans and Democrats during the previous few years and in the months leading up to the massacre.
So even though I don't usually deal with the post Civil War period, I think the points that Richardson makes are valuable to think about for events on the frontier and Native American history in general. Good read.

[Sherri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a very interesting account of politics in the Gilded Era and who those politics influenced events in settling the West. As somebody who few up in and currently lives in South Dakota, I found the book particularly interesting. There are many details about the history of South Dakota that I never knew.

But this book should be read by anybody wanting to understand Native Americans and how the policies set in motion in 1887 continue to have adverse effects today.

If you don't know anything about Wounded Knee, or like me knew it only as a tragedy, you should read this book. Calling it a tragedy is an understatement.

This was a very well written and researched book.