The Heart of Everything That Is

August 12, 2013
For all of our culture’s fascination with the American Indian, it’s almost impossible to believe that one of the most well-known Indians of his time, the Oglala Sioux warrior chief Red Cloud, could be largely forgotten until now. Yet that’s exactly what we discover in this illuminating account by Drury and Clavin (Halsey’s Typhoon). As the de facto leader of the Western Sioux nation—an unprecedented feat in itself given the Sioux’s rigorous individualism and a “culture consisted of fluid, haphazard tribal groups”—Red Cloud and his army stand alone in history as the only Indians to ever defeat the United States in a war, which took all of two years (1866–1868). A history inconveniently at odds with the accepted American narrative, the manuscript for Red Cloud’s 1893 autobiography lay in a drawer at the Nebraska State Historical Society into the 1990s. Thanks to that work and the authors’ extensive, additional scholarship, readers now have access to a much more thorough, comprehensive understanding of the Plains Indians’ brutal and tragically futile efforts to protect their land and way of living from the progress of ”civilization.” Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel-Weber Associates.

November 15, 2016
In 1868, Red Cloud, a respected Oglala chief, led an intertribal war against the U.S. Army and won. Waters' adaptation reiterates the subtitle's claim that it's an untold story ("his story has long been forgotten by conventional American history"), though this is far from the first book about him, and contemporary tribal nations honor his legacy. Unfortunately, this book's outsider perspective is all too evident. In the text, Lakota men and women are labeled as "braves" and "maidens" and the Lakota Sun Dance ceremony as "fearsome," when it was an annual sacred ceremony to honor the Great Spirit. Often the tone is condescending. When the Mormon Trail opened in 1847, readers are told "the Lakota, in particular the Oglalas, were initially helpless in the face of this onslaught," eliding the fact that the Oglalas were well-trained warriors. Further, Red Cloud is often portrayed as brutish: "Sometimes it just felt good and natural to go out and steal horses. If he took some scalps in the process, so much the better." Finally, there is a glaring chronological error: in 1868, when Gen. Philip Sheridan closed Fort Laramie, the Lakota were told "if they wished to trade, they were free to do business at Fort Randall on the Missouri River in distant southeast South Dakota, about as far from [their Black Hills homeland] as one can travel and still be in the state." South Dakota did not achieve statehood until Nov. 2, 1889. This adaptation will diminish Red Cloud's legacy, perpetuate negative stereotypes, and provide incorrect information to young readers: skip. (afterword, acknowledgments, timeline, glossary, historical sites, further information, index) (Nonfiction. 10-16)

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January 1, 2017

Gr 6 Up-While nominally a celebration of the life of Red Cloud, a renowned Oglala Lakota leader, this young readers edition of the 2013 work of the same name disappointingly reinforces many offensive stereotypes. Red Cloud, a contemporary of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, was a masterful military and political strategist who formed alliances with other tribes, leading successful raids against encroaching white settlers. Waters presents Red Cloud's fight to save his people against the backdrop of the U.S. government's focus on the Civil War, westward expansion, the discovery of gold in Montana, and the construction of the railways. The text is enhanced by photographs and maps. Unfortunately, the authors use outdated, value-laden, and exoticizing language ("braves grunted and yipped" and "jeered [and] shrieked"): teaching young people hunting strategies is framed as "knowledge and wisdom that dominated conversation in each tepee," and some Lakota are described as "docile." By contrast, whites are differentiated as well-rounded individuals of varying temperaments and viewpoints. For example, the killing of General Custer and his soldiers is a "shocking slaughter." Statements such as, "For the Lakota were not finished dying" also convey the mistaken impression that the Lakota Nation no longer exists. There are frequent references to American Indians scalping whites, including sensationalistic chapter headings (for instance, "Scalped Alive"). It does a disservice to readers and the subjects of this book when white people's reactions to death and devastation are described, evoking sympathy ("frantic, terrified cavalrymen"), but not those of American Indians, who are portrayed as "cunning," "sly," and "turbulent and vicious." VERDICT Not recommended for purchase. Consider Joseph Marshall III's In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse instead for a fictional look at a Lakota leader.-Laura Simeon, Open Window School, Bellevue, WA

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