i have heard alot about the man and the book from many people. so i decided to buy the book and read it myself. i must say that for a person that lived with the indians for such a long time it seems to me that denig could not overcome his prejudiced ideas of a civilized or "savage" people and although he describes the manners of the indians in much detail he speaks about them with great arrogance, prejudice and contemp much of the time. to call the indians savages, heathens, and some more contemptuous words like these after living with them for years and marrying one of them, does not show much for the man. one should take his information with much prudence and caution.

I entirely agree with the other reviewer that Denig was very prejudiced about Native Americans. For me, the value in the book - and it is great - is to have rare information about these tribes before their near-disappearance. Denig seems to save his harshest criticisms for the tribes that were most independent, and his stories about these groups give us a glimpse into their lives. I would very much recommend this book to people who are interested in the early 19th century world of the Upper Missouri.

I'd also add a consideration of author Lazarus's viewpoint, which Stripes rightly says is distorted by Lazarus's attempt to vindicate his father's role as an attorney for the Lakota tribes. I am a third year law student who sees himself as a Peace Corps Volunteer sent from the "real world" to the world of law. Legal education is worse than most in its warping effect on students' judgment. I am also reading Lazarus's "Closed Chambers", about the Supreme Court for whose Justice Blackmun Lazarus served as a post-graduate "clerk" in 1988-9. This latter book was written recently and is generally well-balanced and hopeful. By contrast, the Black Hills book was written while and soon after Lazarus completed his education, and shows signs of the preternatural or premature jadedness that not only infects law schools but seems to be part of the curriculum. I'll let Lazarus speak for himself (from page 230-1, as far as I've gotten in the book): "Tough and technically precise, the motion to vacate reflected an unmistakable contrast between the tribe's old and new counsel. Gone was Case's [the "bungler"] essentially romantic view of the legal process and his sentimental confidence that the government's overriding sense of fairness would lead it to a just settlement with the Sioux. Instead, Sonosky, Schifter, and Lazarus brought to the Sioux claims a hard-nosed view of the law and a degree of skepticism about the federal government. To them, the law was a two-edged sword to be wielded boldly and carefully in the service of clients. The legal system was a battlefield where the better cause did not always prevail. And the federal government was sometimes an ally, sometimes an adversary, but rarely the impartial purveyor of justice. The lawyers differed in their attitude towards their clients as well. To Case--the frontiersman's son inspired by the melting pot image of America--the Sioux were warriors to the last man who, nonetheless, wanted to assume their rightful place as members of an integrated national family. Sonosky, Schifter, and Lazarus, by contrast, heirs to a Jewish sensitivity about issues of ethnicity and discrimination, believed deeply in the New Deal's promise of cultural pluralism and Indian self-rule. They thought Indian law generally, and the claims process specifically, should be directed not towards ultimate assimilation but towards obtaining for Indians every penny to which they were entitled under law and guaranteeing to them a degree of independence in the direction of their own destinies." I think the heirs of the European usurpers should give the heirs of the original inhabitants of the continent a tenth of the current land/wealth. If the latter heirs want to buy a chunk of California and set up a gated community or a new state, feel free. The trend in Indian law seems to be the steady encroachment on Indian "independence". The father Lazarus's representation of the Black Hills claim netted 17 million dollars, what, five hundred dollars per survivor. No wonder the tribes voted to reject the award or settlement. Old Case's wheedling of the various courts, which younger Lazarus depicts as deaf to any call for justice anyway, at least had the merit of believing that Right means something in this country. If you don't believe that your opposite number cares about justice, what is your basis for persuasion? Public humiliation? Dazzling ambiguities to batter her or him into silence? Veiled threats (that you couldn't carry through on anyway)? These seem like the public's view of "lawyer's tricks". I say all this with younger Lazarus's later "Closed Chambers" in mind. Despite a couple of rough edges in its early pages, it is a passionate and philosophical study (so far, as of page 260) of a nation struggling to govern itself under law. There are no particular bad guys, no Case fall-guys for Lazarus's righteous indignation to exhaust itself upon. The later book is more of a Shakespearean tragedy, with the worst characters having redeeming (or redeemable) qualities. In a phrase, Lazarus has lost, by the time of this later book's writing, the "scorched earth" mentality that carried him into his earlier work. I suspect he got that mentality, largely, in law school. I think, as elder bungler Case might have said sheepishly,that that's a damn' shame and not necessary. If law is indeed a conversation, you can't have a conversation with someone if you are constantly calling him or her, in your mind or under your breath, a damn' fool. Speaking of Jewishness, I believe the Old Testament, one of the Wisdom Books, says somewhere that the person who calls someone else a fool (a rakah?) will not be forgiven. That's not an epiphany--it's the experience of neighbors who distrust anyone who badmouths an absent neighbor: what will this guy say about you when your back is turned? If you're not a good citizen, you're not going to be a good lawyer.

This book offers good historical narrative, but also justifies the actions of the author's father. It lacks balance in its perspectives.

The author's father, Arthur Lazarus, was one of the principle attorney's who won the largest, longest running Indian land claims case in US history. In 1980 the US Supreme Court upheld a judgement in favor of the Sioux of $17.1 million plus interest for loss of the Black Hills. However, the check has never been cashed; rather, the judgement money continues to draw interest. The Sioux now reject their legal victory that awarded them "just compensation" for loss of sacred lands, arguing that only restoration of these lands to the Sioux will end the conflict.

In _Black Hills / White Justice_, Edward Lazarus describes the legal efforts of Oglala attorney Mario Gonzalez (one of the leaders in the land restoration movement) as a Lakota Don Quixote who lacks a sense of reality. This bias affects much of the story that Lazarus tells in this history.

Never the less, there is no other book that offers a comprehensive overview of the history of US-Sioux relations through more than two centuries. The book is well researched and well written. It is a good primer.

The story in this book begins as the Sioux begin their rise to dominance on the northern Plains as they acquire horses and guns. The focus then shifts to the interactions of the Sioux with non-Indians from early traders and explorers to government officials, soldiers, settlers, and finally, bureaucrats and lawyers. In the focus on this relationship, the book offers little insight into the internal dynamics of Sioux culture, but it says more about the legal relationships between tribes and the federal government than many other books.

I wish I could give a review, but I have been waiting for this book since December 2002.

This dictionary concentrates on commonly used words. It is the best English-Lakota dictionary I've read. It's biggest weakness for someone trying to communicate is it has no Lakota-English section. I've bought many of these and give them away to friends trying to learn the language.

Mooney's study is often fascinating, although one has to wonder how objective and disinterested someone can be who refers to his subject as "this pathetic cult."

I listened to the audiocassette of this massacre. Massacres come out a little different on audio than they do in a movie, or in a book, or (!) in person? Anyway, they're harder to follow, because the geography is abstract and so are the people. All I know is that Colonel Carrington, Jim Bridger, and Sergeant Seamus Donnegan are the good guys. Fetterman (I forget his rank, but he's a hotshot something) and Captain Brown are the bad guys (and they pay big time!). Man-afraid-of-his-horse, Curly, and Red Cloud are kind of like non-innocent bystanders: they wreak plenty of havoc, but it's not really they're fault, they're just sort of trying to "get over"? I myself had never heard of the Fetterman Massacre (1866), ten years before Custer's turn. Mr. Johnston, may he rest in peace, has educated me. What better way to learn history? But maybe the listener might benefit from having handy an atlas with detailed maps of the fighting area. Maybe some biographical information about the combatants. Anyway, worth listening, but needs some adjuncts. And scary! When you think about being in Fetterman's shoes, but then isn't all war scary? Diximus.

This edition of "Indian Massacre in Minnesota" is a reprint of an 1864 history on the Dakota uprising in southeastern Minnesota in 1862. Charles Bryant, the primary author, played a role in the uprising; he was a soldier at Fort Ridgley during the assaults launched on the fort by Little Crow and his Dakota followers. Bryant later served as a prosecutor with the Sioux Commission, seeking restitution from confiscated Indian annuity funds to help white victims of the uprising. The full title of the book is, "A History of the Great Massacre by the Sioux Indians In Minnesota Including the Personal Narratives of Many who Escaped." You have to love those 19th century titles!

The book contains three sections. The first section outlines the various causes for the outbreak on the reservation followed by accounts of early battles and incidents. Bryant and Murch provide several cogent reasons for the troubles, including Indian starvation, a late annuity payment (which, in what is one of the great ironies of history, arrived at Fort Ridgely on the day of the uprising), and tensions between Indians who accepted white civilization programs (farmer Indians) and reactionaries who wished to remain true to Dakota ways (blanket Indians). These causes still find supporters in modern historical examinations.

Not content with exposing obvious causes of Dakota rebellion, Bryant and Murch reveal the presence of a racial conspiracy on the part of the Dakota. According to Bryant and Murch, Little Crow and the other leaders of the rebellion conspired to attack white settlers because that is what all lesser races do when confronted by the superior cultural influence of the white race. With what one assumes is a straight face, Bryant and Murch conclude that Indians are savage, indolent, rude little children incapable of any true ability to retain Christian values or civilizing practices administered by whites. Was the uprising really a conspiracy? Yes it was, in the sense that Indian leaders met in secret to decide their options. Even then, it was hardly monolithic; many Indians argued against war with the whites because they knew they would lose in the long run. Even Little Crow, the leader vilified by Bryant and Murch as the scourge of God, initially argued AGAINST fighting the whites. To label the 1862 uprising as a RACIAL conspiracy is ridiculous because Indians rarely looked at anything in a racial manner. In the early days of contact with Europeans, Dakotas always accepted whites who married their daughters as members of the family. The literature of the time is rife with references to "our white brothers and sisters," making a racial conspiracy highly suspect as a viable methodology for examining Indian/White relations.

Closely tied with this conspiracy theory is the conception of Christianity and God. Bryant and Murch see the spread of white civilization as a divinely sanctioned mission to go forth and subdue the land. Since Indians do not do anything with land (except live off of it, but we'll ignore that pesky little fact in the interests of examining the claims of the authors), it is up to whites to develop the land while showing the natives the right way to live. This worldview finds expression through a document recording the words of one Major Thomas Galbraith. Who is Galbraith? He is the government agent in charge of the affairs of the Dakota reservation!

The second section of the book is a lengthy series of narrative accounts from white settlers involved in the uprising. These are truly heartrending accounts of murder, torture, and other hazardous conditions faced by those who survived the rebellion. Two things become apparent in this section. First, pioneer folk were hardy, industrious people. The Indians were not going to keep these people down for long. Most of the accounts are from women, discussing the deaths of their husbands and children, wandering around in the wilderness for weeks on end with little food and water, or carrying children for miles upon miles in rough weather and difficult terrain. These narratives show that tragedy descended on both Dakotas and settlers during the uprising.

Second, there is a total blackout on Indian or pro-Indian narratives about the conflict. A noticeably absent narrative is that of Sarah Wakefield, the white wife of an agency physician captured by Indians early in the conflict. This absence is probably due to Sarah's defense of Chaska, the Indian who protected Sarah during her captivity. After the war ended, Sarah fought tooth and nail to clear Chaska of any harmful accusations. She made such a nuisance of herself that whites began to darkly insinuate that she must be a "squaw," and therefore someone who secretly supported the Indian agenda. As for Chaska, he ended up going to the gallows.

The final section discusses the end of the uprising, the trials and executions of Indians, and the campaigns of Generals Sibley and Sulley against the fleeing Dakotas. In ominously prescient words, Bryant and Murch discuss the need for total war against the outcast Dakotas and their Lakota relatives in the west.

Although the book contains glaring racism, shallow descriptions of many events (because it appeared while the repercussions of the uprising were still going on), and outright malarkey, there is still some value in reading this book. Information on the causes of the conflict is good, and many of the documents included in the narrative provided sharp insight into the people involved in the war. Any serious examination of the Dakota uprising of 1862 must take this book into account.