Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Legal scholar Matteoni tells the sweeping, devastating story of the decline of Sioux power in the latter half of the 19th century. From the 1860s through the 1880s, Sitting Bull, a spiritual Hunkpapa Lakota warrior, fought an increasingly futile battle to preserve his people's way of life. Though the story's flow is often marred by an over-use of block quotes and the unnecessary use of reconstructed dialogue, Matteoni has a knack for describing the various armed confrontations of this time period, particularly the famous 1876 battle of Little Big Horn. The first half of the book belongs to Sitting Bull; his eventual nemesis, James McLaughlin, does not come fully into view until 1881, when he accepted the position of Indian agent at the Standing Rock Agency in the Dakota Territory. Despite being backed by the power of the U.S. government, McLaughlin was overshadowed by Sitting Bull when the warrior arrived at McLaughlin's agency in 1883. There, the two men clashed for more than six years over who had the right to speak for and lead the Sioux. Though McLaughlin ultimately prevailed, Matteoni's book will remind readers why Sitting Bull has become such an important historical figure. Illus. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Lawyer Matteoni presents the parallel lives of Dakota chief Sitting Bull (1831-90) and Indian agent James McLaughlin (1842-1923), two men who would ultimately clash in the Dakota prairie country. The volume begins with the Minnesota River Valley uprisings of the 1860s, documenting the ensuing conflict between the U.S. government and the residents of the Northern Plains. Sitting Bull's life is revealed beyond the context of Gen. Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn as the author documents Sitting Bull's exodus to Canada, continued resistance to reservation life, metropolitan tours with Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, and controversial death after McLaughlin ordered his arrest. Matteoni mines McLaughlin's writings, government treaties, and later biographies of Sitting Bull-such as Stanley Vestal's Sitting Bull (1932)-to flesh out the text. The author also utilizes his legal knowledge to provide background to the various treaties broken by the U.S. government, occasionally sprinkling "interpretive quotations" into the text to give voice to the account. At times, the content seems overloaded with redundant detail, but the book achieves an information-rich narrative of latter 19th-century Dakota history. -VERDICT An informative debut for those seeking a focused, detailed portrait of Sitting Bull's life and the struggle for dominance of the American Plains.-Jeffrey Meyer, Mt. Pleasant P.L., IA © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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