Review of \u3ci\u3ePatrick Connor\u27s War: The 1865 Powder River Indian Expedition\u3c/i\u3e by David E. Wagner

Patrick Connor\u27s War is the late David E. Wagner\u27s second book in the past year dealing with the military operations against Lakotas and Cheyennes in the Powder River country of today\u27s Wyoming and environs in 1865. Like his previous work, Powder River Odyssey, dealing with Nelson Cole\u27s wing of an expensive army offensive operation against the Plains tribes in the wake, some contend, of raids on the Overland Trail avenging the Sand Creek Massacre, the current book relies heavily on campaign records, personal recollections, and diaries of the officers, civilian contractors, and enlisted men involved in the campaign. The volume is rich in detail and likely the most complete composite synthesis of these campaign records kept largely by men of state volunteer regiments. The book includes many maps that are easy to follow once one realizes the campaign traveled up and down river and stream courses rather than along modern roads

Review of \u3ci\u3eWhere the Tall Grass Grows: Becoming Indigenous and the Mythological Legacy of the American West\u3c/i\u3e by Bobby Bridger

Musician, writer, and entertainer Bobby Bridger, a descendant of the well-known western trapper and scout Jim Bridger, has written a book attempting to link the past to the present by connecting historical eras of the American western movement with how Native Americans have been viewed, not only at the time, but in modern writing, especially fiction, stage productions, and, most importantly, motion pictures. His thesis is apparently based on a sentiment expressed by Indigenous author Joseph Marshall III at a Western Writers of America Conference to the effect that, although Indians have walked in the white world, whites have not walked in the Native world. His inspiration is also drawn from John Neihardt\u27s classic Black Elk Speaks, Dee Brown\u27s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, as well as the works of Vine and Philip Deloria

Review of \u3ci\u3eInkpaduta: Dakota Leader.\u3c/i\u3e By Paul N. Beck

Inkpaduta, the renowned Dakota leader, has for years been viewed by history in a negative light, a savage who wantonly perpetuated the infamous Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857. Following the Dakota War in Minnesota in 1862, Inkpaduta made his way west among Nakota and finally Lakota brethren and in so doing became the scourge of the Plains, gaining a dark reputation wherever he went. Inkpaduta ended his career of resistance at the Battle of the Little Bighorn at either the age of sixty-one or seventy-six, depending on which disputed birth date one chooses. Paul Beck has written the most complete biography of Inkpaduta to date, taking issue with the idea that the Dakota leader was an embodiment of evil. Beck casts blame on Victorian-era historian Doane Robinson of South Dakota for stereotyping Inkpaduta as an outlaw and all around demon of the Great Plains, an image perpetuated in secondary histories to the present day. This reviewer has likewise found unsubstantiated claims in Robinson\u27s work. Beck contends that until 1857 Inkpaduta committed no violence against white settlers and that he lived in peace with whites for most of his life. If one accepts his date of birth, as some do, as being in 1800, then this claim is certainly true. Occasionally even during times of war Inkpaduta befriended white traders when it was to his advantage. The current generation of historians is pointing out that this trend was actually quite common among large Indian nations throughout the Plains

Review of \u3ci\u3eInkpaduta: Dakota Leader.\u3c/i\u3e By Paul N. Beck

Inkpaduta, the renowned Dakota leader, has for years been viewed by history in a negative light, a savage who wantonly perpetuated the infamous Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857. Following the Dakota War in Minnesota in 1862, Inkpaduta made his way west among Nakota and finally Lakota brethren and in so doing became the scourge of the Plains, gaining a dark reputation wherever he went. Inkpaduta ended his career of resistance at the Battle of the Little Bighorn at either the age of sixty-one or seventy-six, depending on which disputed birth date one chooses. Paul Beck has written the most complete biography of Inkpaduta to date, taking issue with the idea that the Dakota leader was an embodiment of evil. Beck casts blame on Victorian-era historian Doane Robinson of South Dakota for stereotyping Inkpaduta as an outlaw and all around demon of the Great Plains, an image perpetuated in secondary histories to the present day. This reviewer has likewise found unsubstantiated claims in Robinson\u27s work. Beck contends that until 1857 Inkpaduta committed no violence against white settlers and that he lived in peace with whites for most of his life. If one accepts his date of birth, as some do, as being in 1800, then this claim is certainly true. Occasionally even during times of war Inkpaduta befriended white traders when it was to his advantage. The current generation of historians is pointing out that this trend was actually quite common among large Indian nations throughout the Plains

Review of \u3ci\u3eWhere the Tall Grass Grows: Becoming Indigenous and the Mythological Legacy of the American West\u3c/i\u3e by Bobby Bridger

Musician, writer, and entertainer Bobby Bridger, a descendant of the well-known western trapper and scout Jim Bridger, has written a book attempting to link the past to the present by connecting historical eras of the American western movement with how Native Americans have been viewed, not only at the time, but in modern writing, especially fiction, stage productions, and, most importantly, motion pictures. His thesis is apparently based on a sentiment expressed by Indigenous author Joseph Marshall III at a Western Writers of America Conference to the effect that, although Indians have walked in the white world, whites have not walked in the Native world. His inspiration is also drawn from John Neihardt\u27s classic Black Elk Speaks, Dee Brown\u27s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, as well as the works of Vine and Philip Deloria

Life on the Quarry Wall Vs the Quarry Floor: Parthenocissus quinquefolia

Parthenocissus quinquefolia, Virginia creeper, is found in two parts of the DePauw Nature Park quarry: vertically along the quarry wall and on large rock piles on the quarry floor. I looked into how these different habitats influenced the growth form, stress responses, and fitness of the P. quinquefolia growing in them. P. quinquefolia on the wall has higher chlorophyll a content and higher water content. There was also a higher percentage of flowering individuals on the quarry wall than on the floor. Lastly, the two habitats had vastly different morphological growth forms, with those on the wall having very long internodes compared to those on the floor. The data shows that P. quinquefolia on the quarry floor was more water and light stressed and had lower fitness; this suggests the quarry wall is a more suitable habitat for P. quinquefolia than the floor

Stressed, but doing fine. An Investigation of Apocynum Canabinum Patches and Individuals

Apocynum cannabinum (hemp dogbane) is a native Indiana plant that is abundant in the DePauw University Nature Park’s quarry, a heterogeneous site that contains stretches of dry, rocky terrain in addition to many temporary ponds. In 2023, I mapped the distribution of A. cannabinum in the quarry to see if its habitats are associated with elevation and/or the presence of temporary ponds. I also conducted a study of diurnal pollinator visitation, and an examination of damage caused by the dogbane saucrobotys moth (Saucrobotys futilalis)

Investigating the Andromeda Stream: I. Simple Analytic Bulge-Disk-Halo Model for M31

This paper is the first in a series which studies interactions between M31 and its satellites, including the origin of the giant southern stream. We construct accurate yet simple analytic models for the potential of the M31 galaxy to provide an easy basis for calculation of orbits in M31's halo. We use an NFW dark halo, an exponential disk, a Hernquist bulge, and a central black hole point mass to describe the galaxy potential. We constrain the parameters of these functions by comparing to existing surface brightness, velocity dispersion, and rotation curve measurements of M31. Our description provides a good fit to the observations, and agrees well with more sophisticated modeling of M31. While in many respects the parameter set is well constrained, there is substantial uncertainty in the outer halo potential and a near-degeneracy between the disk and halo components, producing a large, nearly two-dimensional allowed region in parameter space. We limit the allowed region using theoretical expectations for the halo concentration, baryonic content, and stellar $M/L$ ratio, finding a smaller region where the parameters are physically plausible. Our proposed mass model for M31 has M_{bulge} = 3.2 \times 10^{10} \Msun, M_{disk} = 7.2 \times 10^{10} \Msun, and M_{200} = 7.1\times 10^{11} \Msun, with uncorrected (for internal and foreground extinction) mass-to-light ratios of $M/L_R = 3.9$ and 3.3 for the bulge and disk, respectively. We present some illustrative test particle orbits for the progenitor of the stellar stream in our galaxy potential, highlighting the effects of the remaining uncertainty in the disk and halo masses.Comment: 17 pages, 8 color figures, 2 tables. Accepted by Monthly Notices; Models listed in tables modified, text reorganized and shortene