The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee

This volume, first published in 2004, presents an overview of the relations between the Plains Sioux Indians and the United States.

Jeffrey Ostler (Author)

9780521605908, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 July 2004

406 pages, 17 b/w illus. 6 maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.61 kg

'Jeffery Ostler's The Palins Sioux and U.S. Colonialism form Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee offers professional historians and history students an insider's perspective of U.S. expansionism. … What makes Ostler's study valuable is that it can serve both as as a reference work for professors who need to expand or support their claims of American settlement as well as to Student's requiring an introductory text to American colonialism.' Cercles

This volume, first published in 2004, presents an overview of the history of the Plains Sioux as they became increasingly subject to the power of the United States in the 1800s. Many aspects of this story - the Oregon Trail, military clashes, the deaths of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the Ghost Dance - are well-known. Besides providing fresh insights into familiar events, the book offers an in-depth look at many lesser-known facets of Sioux history and culture. Drawing on theories of colonialism, the book shows how the Sioux creatively responded to the challenges of US expansion and domination, while at the same time revealing how US power increasingly limited the autonomy of Sioux communities as the century came to a close. The concluding chapters of the book offer a compelling reinterpretation of the events that led to the Wounded Knee massacre of December 29, 1890.

Introduction: colonialism, agency and power
Part I. Conquest: 1. 'Vilest Miscreants of the Savage Race': the Plains Sioux in an empire of liberty
2. 'Futile Efforts to Subjugate Them': failures of conquest
3. 'Doubtless an Unauthorized Promise': the politics of the Great Sioux war
4. 'Force is the Only Thing': the killing of Crazy Horse
Part II. Colonialism: 5. 'We Were Raised in This Country': claiming place
6. 'I Work So Much It Makes Me Poor': the reservation economy
7. 'Just as Well with My Hair On': colonial education
8. 'All Men are Different': the politics of religion and culture
9. 'Great Trouble and Bad Feeling': government agents and Sioux leaders
10. 'Enough to Crush Us Down': struggles for Land
Part III. Anticolonialism and the State: 11. 'When the Earth Shakes Do Not Be Afraid': the Ghost Dance as an anticolonial movement
12. 'To Bring My People Back into the Hoop': the development of the Lakota Ghost Dance
13. 'The Most Serious Indian War of Our History': the army's invasion
14. 'If He Fights, Destroy Him': the road to Wounded Knee
15. 'A Valley of Death': Wounded Knee
Conclusion: after Wounded Knee.

Subject Areas: Indigenous peoples [JFSL9], National liberation & independence, post-colonialism [HBTR], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]