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\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