Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1998
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 4, Fall 1998, pp. 356-57
Abstract
The intense pan-Indian activism of the 1960s- 70s, most notably the work of the American Indian Movement (AIM), represents a crucial stage in the political development of Native America in this century. Yet it has received only minimal investigation by scholars. One reason for this is the uncertainty of some historians over when material ceases to be "current events" and evolves into a specimen inhabiting their domain. Consequently, Paul Chaat Smith and Paul Allen Warrior have broken new ground with their book, perhaps in part because neither is a historian and neither obsesses over such artificial pigeonholing. Warrior teaches English at Stanford University; Smith's background is in law, art, and politics.
Their work is a survey of what are arguably the movement's three most dramatic episodes: the takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1969; The Trail of Broken Treaties and subsequent occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Building in Washington, D.C., in 1972; and the siege of Wounded Knee in 1973. In choosing such highly publicized events, the authors have assured themselves access to a plethora of sources, and they have done a commendable job in covering them. Most of the major primary sources, including published memoirs and various media coverage, are all well-mined and supplemented with over sixty interviews with participants in the events. Due attention is paid to Native sources.
Comments
Copyright 1998 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska- Lincoln