God's Red Son

Starred review from February 13, 2017
Warren, a professor of U.S. history at the University of California, Davis, provides an engrossing, readable, and carefully researched history plotting the rise, spread, and continued life of the Ghost Dance among Native Americans. Since its rise in 1890 and sudden, violent suppression at Wounded Knee, the history of the Ghost Dance has focused on its return to past practices, the promise of a land free from whites, and protection in battle. Warren does not dismiss the influence of forced resettlement and broken treaties made with Native American communities, but he persuasively argues that Native American adherents focused more on integrating with Euro-American economy and used the Ghost Dance to maintain their native culture and “Indianness.” Key figures shape his narrative, including the prophet Wokova in Nevada, whose visions sparked the movement; Short Bull, the Lakota who brought it to the Plains; and James Mooney, the white anthropologist who recorded it and shaped all subsequent scholarship. Warren ties together seemingly unrelated strands to give a clear sense of the convulsing changes and challenges of the last decade of the 19th century. The work will delight fans of well-written history and appeal to historians of the West, Native Americans, and religion.

February 15, 2017
An enlightening scholarly study of American Indian history that gets at the root tensions underlying the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee.Why were the Americans so concerned about the Ghost Dance religion practiced so enthusiastically by the Lakota Sioux and other Great Plains tribes in the 1880s? In this astute new appraisal, Warren (Western U.S. History/Univ. of California, Davis; Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show, 2005, etc.) finds in this religion--based on messianic visions by a northern Paiute in Nevada named Wovoka--a shred of hope for Indians denuded of their ancestral power and land, herded into reservations, and stripped of their ability to live by the hunting-and-gathering methods of their elders. The dance took elements of Christianity, such as the messiah figure, and wove them into a joyful communion involving movement and visions of horses and buffalo. Though the dancers could become frenzied and fall unconscious, Warren insists that it was essentially a peaceful dance, stressing harmony within this jagged new age of American industry, wage work, and deracination. However, many Americans--since Indians were not considered citizens until 1924, Warren does not include Indians as Americans here--felt threatened by the dances and banned the gatherings as being warlike, leading to the tragic misunderstanding between the military and hundreds of Lakota at the Pine Ridge Reservation in late 1890. Yet unlike the conclusions by authors and historians such as Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Warren does not see the Ghost Dance as the death knell of Indian history or spirituality but rather the beginning of Indians' attempt to live and adapt to a strange new world in which literacy was necessary and industrial capitalism was the driving economic force. Warren also looks at the work of anthropologist James Mooney, who chronicled the passing of "authentic" Indian ways during this era by first studying the Ghost Dance. Though it may be too academic for some readers, this is an eye-opening work of American history.

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March 1, 2017

In 1889, Northern Paiute leader Wovoka experienced a vision which led him to preach that Native tribes should peacefully coexist with settlers. He also promised that performing the Ghost Dance would see him to a utopian existence where Native Americans flourished. Wovoka's promise appealed to peoples like the Arapaho and Sioux who suffered from abject poverty and hopelessness on reservations. Although the Ghost Dance was a peaceful movement, the federal government suppressed the religion, efforts that culminated in the massacre at Wounded Knee by the Seventh Cavalry on December 29, 1890. Within the year, James Mooney began research into what became the definitive work on the subject, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. Mooney's volume heavily influenced later works such as Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Warren (history, Univ. of California, Davis; Buffalo Bill's America) challenges Mooney's work by detailing how his reliance on sources such as federal documents and Native Americans who opposed the religion resulted in flawed conclusions. Warren convincingly argues that Mooney's erroneous picture was owing to those religious people who refused to cooperate with him, as they understandably did not want more violence exacted upon them. VERDICT This reinterpretation of the Ghost Dance religion is highly recommended for readers interested in Native Americans, anthropology, or the history of the West.--John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017
It began with a charismatic Nevada Paiute Indian named Wovokahis American name was Jack Wilsonwho was soon called the Prophet as the founder of a new religion, the Ghost Dance, expressed in ecstatic dancing. It quickly swept across the Native American West until it reached its untimely end at the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre fomented by Americans fearful of its sparking rebellion. Or did it end? Author Warren argues otherwise, asserting that it survived on the Southern Plains and in Canada well into the twentieth century. In making his case, he divides this fascinating work of religious/social history into three parts; the first provides a rich context for the upstart religion, the second examines how the religion took root, and the third charts the life of the religion following Wounded Knee. The result is a complex work that, as the introduction promises, has much to teach us about the social sciences and anthropology. While of obvious academic interest, the book will also appeal to general readers curious about Indian history and religion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)