Review by Choice Review
The legend of this prominent Hunkpapa Sioux leader has ranged from the late 19th century despised image of the "killer of Custer" to today's representation of the "super-Indian." Utley, former chief historian of the National Park Service and recognized authority on the trans-Mississippi West, avoids the two extremes and recreates a more honest appraisal. Using both Indian and white accounts, Utley takes his subject from a childhood spent amid Sioux ascendancy to his tragic death at the hands of Indian police in 1890. The author stresses both the spiritual power and temporal leadership qualities that raised Sitting Bull to fame among his own people, and, by the 1870s, among non-Indians as well. Utley also pays close attention to the importance of kinship and the dynamics of Lakota tribal society to properly explain their motivations. He likewise demonstrates how congressional delegations, often working with avaricious western land interests, dismembered the Great Sioux Reservation during the 1870s and '80s, leading ultimately to the rise of the Ghost Dance and the tragic consequences of Wounded Knee. This book is well written, strongly documented, and fairly reasoned to satisfy even specialists within the field. It surpasses all previous biographies of Sitting Bull. All levels. M. L. Tate; University of Nebraska at Omaha
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Sitting Bull's fabled renown is reflected in the copious supply of primary source material--and not only the documents penned by his U.S. Army antagonists. Several of his kin lived into the 1920s and set down their vivid memories, which the last Sitting Bull biographer, Stanley Vestal, folded into Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux (1932). Distancing himself from that work, Utley accretes his portrait through the patient consideration of every shred of evidence that has survived about the warrior and his doomed cause. Utley executes this large plan with an unidealized sensibility for the culture of the nomadic Sioux clans of the Yellowstone River area, who followed the buffalo and warred with Crow and Blackfeet. By the 1862 Sioux uprising, the 31-year-old chief already led the younger warriors; Utley recreates the acts through which Sitting Bull attained and never relinquished his kin's esteem. Those acts included coups (striking the first blow against an enemy), moments of great generosity, times of fortitude against pain--and the visionary evidence of Sitting Bull's closeness to Wakantanka (the Great Mystery). Utley then traces the Lakota setbacks in councils and battles with bluecoats and Indian agents, forestalled briefly by the victory over Long Hair at Little Big Horn. Ending in a violent fracas in 1890, the chief's life seems ennobled by this benchmark biography, which will prove daunting indeed to any future writer aspiring to improve its factual balance. A definitive work destined for longevity. (Reviewed Apr. 15, 1993)0805012745Gilbert Taylor
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
To most white Americans of the mid-19th century, Sitting Bull embodied the hostile native. To the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, he was a patriot and a respected political, military and spiritual leader. Utley ( Cavalier in Buckskin ), a former chief historian of the National Park Service, presents a definitive biography of this legendary warrior. Born in 1831 on the great Plains, son of a chief, Sitting Bull was a seasoned warrior by the age of 15; at 26, he was tribal war chief. As the conflicts with the U.S. Army began in the 1850s, Sitting Bull represented the spirit of resistance among his people. Utley follows the increasing hostilities of succeeding years and gives a vivid account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Three years after fleeing to Canada, Sitting Bull returned to the U.S. and reservation life. In 1890, he was shot by Indian police sent to arrest him before his intended departure for a sundance at another reservation. Utley believes that the arrest was unjustified, but that the shooting, which led to the Battle of Wounded Knee a few months later, was not premeditated. Photos. History Book club main selection; BOMC and QPB selections. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Utley ( Billy the Kid , Univ. of Nebraska Pr., 1989; Cavalier in Buckskin , Univ. of Oklahoma Pr., 1988, among others) turns his attention to one of the best-known Native American leaders. Utley draws extensively from the papers of Stanley Vestal, who wrote what most consider to be the standard biography, Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux (Univ. of Oklahoma Pr., 1989). Unlike Vestal's work, or Alexander B. Adams's popular Sitting Bull: An Epic of the Plains (1973. o.p.), Utley is grounded in the historical method, placing Sitting Bull in the context of his time and culture. Sitting Bull emerges as a complex leader who defeated Custer during what could be termed the ``lance'' portion of his life but was killed by his own people while defending them against white encroachment--as a ``shield.'' This book is expected to become the standard account on Sitting Bull for both the scholar and the armchair student of the American West. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/93.-- Daniel Liestman, Seattle Pacific Univ. Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Enormous, groundbreaking biography of the great Lakota Sioux war chief (c. 1831-90). To date, the standard biography of Sitting Bull has been Stanley Vestal's Sitting Bull, Chief of the Sioux, written decades ago and more a triumph of literature than of history. Now, utilizing Vestal's original notes (collected in the 1920's and 30's and featuring interviews with many warriors who knew Sitting Bull intimately), as well as his own extensive research, Utley (Billy the Kid, 1989, etc.) has forged a new portrait of the Sioux warrior that places him squarely within his social and historical context. Whether Utley succeeds in his ambition of writing from both white and Native American perspectives is arguable--can anyone merge the two?--but he details with exquisite care and objectivity the life of the Lakota in the post-Civil War era, along with the intentions and actions of the Federal government. Into this powder-keg situation was born Sitting Bull, who soon demonstrated the revered Lakota male traits of bravery, humility, wisdom, and generosity. Utley, benefiting greatly from massive recent scholarship, traces Sitting Bull's rise as a war chief and as a wichasha wakan (holy man) with greater sensitivity to Native American ways than did previous biographers. In doing so, he puts the lie to earlier portraits of Sitting Bull as a cowardly ``pretender to high rank,'' revealing him as the supreme Sioux chief, a man ``distant and aloof from all whites,'' obsessed with his people's freedom, perhaps too stubborn but unquestionably a ``towering figure.'' Even the years of defeat--including a stint with Buffalo Bill's circus--shine with dignity, and Utley shows that Sitting Bull's death--which the author, going against popular belief, argues was not an assassination but an accident--marked a tragic loss for all Americans, white or Native American. The new standard against which all future lives of Sitting Bull will be measured. (Thirty-two b&w photographs, three maps) (History Book Club Main Selection)
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