Prairie Man: The Struggle between Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin - Softcover

Lawyer Matteoni presents the parallel lives of Dakota chief Sitting Bull and Indian agent James McLaughlin, two men who would ultimately clash in the Dakota prairie country. The volume begins with the Minnesota River Valley uprisings of the 1860s, documenting the ensuing conflict between the U.S. government and the residents of the Northern Plains. Sitting Bull's life is revealed beyond the context of Gen. Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn as the author documents Sitting Bull's exodus to Canada, continued resistance to reservation life, metropolitan tours with Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, and controversial death after McLaughlin ordered his arrest. Matteoni mines McLaughlin's writings, government treaties, and later biographies of Sitting Bull. . . .The author also utilizes his legal knowledge to provide background to the various treaties broken by the U.S. government, occasionally sprinkling 'interpretive quotations' into the text to give voice to the account. . . .[T]he book achieves an information-rich narrative of latter 19th-century Dakota history. An informative debut for those seeking a focused, detailed portrait of Sitting Bull's life and the struggle for dominance of the American Plains. * Library Journal * Prairie Man: The Struggle Between Sitting Bull and the Indian Agent James McLaughlin is a carefully researched and detailed historical scrutiny of a conflict not just between individuals, but also worldviews. After the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn, the infamous defeat of General George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull was publically vilified for refusing to sign treaties, and personifying resistance to U.S. intrusion upon Lakota lands. Indian Agent James McLaughlin represented the U.S. Government's point of view - the desire to 'kill the Indian and save the man' by forcibly moving native tribes to reservations, dismantling their culture, and transforming them into Christian farmers. The story of the conflict between Sitting Bull and James McLaughlin reflects the stormy history between the U. S. and its native peoples, and is at once both worrying and edifying. Extensive notes and an index round out this welcome addition to public and college library Native American Studies or American History shelves. * Library Bookwatch * Prairie Man: The Struggle Between Sitting Bull and the Indian Agent James McLaughlin is a carefully researched and detailed historical scrutiny of a conflict not just between individuals, but also worldviews. . . .The story of the conflict between Sitting Bull and James McLaughlin reflects the stormy history between the U.S. and its native peoples, and is at once both worrying and edifying. Extensive notes and an index round out this welcome addition to public and college library Native American Studies or American History shelves. * Midwest Book Review *

One week after the June 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn, when news of the defeat of Custer and his 7th Cavalry troops reached the American public, Lakota Chief Sitting Bull became the most wanted hostile Indian in America. He had resisted intrusions into Lakota land for years, refused to sign treaties, and had called for a gathering of tribes at Little Big Horn. He epitomized resistance. But 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.