Status Updates From The Last Days of the Sioux ...

"Religion had failed to restore the old life. For the Indians of the West, there was now no choice, but to submit to the new life" such is the argument of this book - there was no alternative

Buffalo Bill offers to take Sioux prisoners to Europe as part of his circus tour, the army approves, "But Comisssioner of Indian affairs Morgan regarded Circus life as demoralising & had publicly announced that no more Indians would be permitted to leave the reservation for exhibition purposes" - this overturned due to lobbying from the Nebraska congressional delegation

disarming a band of Lakota gets out of hand leading to the deaths of at least 84 men & boys, 44 women & 18 children & 25 soldiers: "a regrettable, tragic accident of war that neither side intended, & that called forth behaviour for which some individuals on both sides, in unemotional retrospect, may be judged culpable, but for which neither side as a whole may be properly condemned" - it could have been worse

"In truth, the Interior department had been cleverly maneuvered into paying 61 railway fares & a large hotel bill without receiving much in return"
- wait, wait, did the 61 representatives of the Lakota want to go to washington to discuss legislation designed to destroy their way of life in the first place? As for the cost -how about moving the federal govn to the Lakota!

"To domesticate & civilise wild Indians is a noble work, the accomplishment of which should be a crown of glory to any nation. But to allow them to drag along year after year, & generation after generation, in their old superstitions, laziness ,& filth, when we have the power to elevate them in the scale of humanity, would be a lasting disgrace to our government" 1881 - Commisioner of Indian Affairs

"The chiefs were brought to Washington, lodged in a fine hotel, treated with respect by officials, lionised by the very reformers who demanded their destruction, & in all ways made to feel like foreign monarchs whose favor the United states was courting" maybe its just me, but sometimes I feel you can really tell this was written in 1961 :(

on obliging the Sioux to take up agriculture:"years of bitter experience taught them some of the realities of dry-land farming in Dakota. Agent McChesney...told the Indian Bureau in 1887:' the drawbacks to successful agriculture are so great as not to be overcome with any reasonable amount of effort' - stock rearing was somewhat more succesful