New Sources of Indian History, 1850–1891

Download or read book New Sources of Indian History, 1850–1891 written by Stanley Vestal and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a century has passed since that winter morning in 1890 when the Indian police killed Sitting Bull and destroyed the power of his great Sioux Nation. Yet only recently were the facts about Sitting Bull and the Sioux being sifted from the fables that have grown up in the interim. In New Sources of Indian History, Stanley Vestal traced scores of historical threads, obtained firsthand, which helped reveal the fabric of Sioux life, warfare, and relations with the whites from 1850 to 1891. This miscellany brings together the many phases of existence the Sioux knew when buffalo still roamed the shores of the Missouri, cultural aspects they lost when Indian agencies and military posts replaced the council fire. More than a series of episodes hung on the thread of time, this book portrays a many-colored pattern of American Indian personalities—from Sitting Bull, the leader of a mighty warrior society, to Black Bull, the Indian trickster, who would have sold Sioux lands to whites by the pound. For readers of Vestal’s Sitting Bull (1932) this volume presents proof of the facts set forth in that remarkable biography.