Terrible Justice:Sioux Chiefs and U.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854-1868

Description

They called themselves Dakota, but the explorers and fur traders who first encountered these people in the sixteenth century referred to them as Sioux, a corruption of the name their enemies called them. That linguistic dissonance foreshadowed a series of bloodier conflicts between Sioux warriors and the American military in the mid-nineteenth century.

Doreen Chaky’s narrative history of this contentious time offers the first complete picture of the conflicts on the Upper Missouri in the 1850s and 1860s, the period bookended by the Sioux’s first major military conflicts with the U.S. Army and the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation. Chaky reveals how northern, southern, and Minnesota Sioux all became involved in the U.S. invasion and ties the history of Upper Missouri and Minnesota Sioux history to that of better-known Oglala and Brule Sioux.
“Terrible Justice” includes a wealth of primary sources, introducing readers to several underappreciated Sioux leaders and American army officers who played pivotal roles during this time of conflict and change in both Sioux and U.S. military culture. Chaky uses soldiers’ letters and journals, military and other official communications, and the speeches of Sioux leaders to illuminate the complex dynamics of this high-stakes contest between cultures with diametrically opposed concepts of justice.