Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Summer 1985
Document Type
Article
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 5, No. 3, Summer 1985, pp. 198-99.
Abstract
Gary Clayton Anderson's objective, indicated in the subtitle, is to provide an account of the long sweep of history leading up to the Sioux hostilities in Minnesota which began in mid-August of 1862 and culminated in the hanging of thirty-eight of the participants on 26 December of the same year. Although there is a large body of literature on the 1862 conflict, this book is a welcome addition because most studies have concentrated on the incidents comprising the uprising itself and Indian-white relationships immediately prior to the outbreak of hostilities.
Anderson theorizes that kinship was the organizing principle within and among the allied tribes making up the eastern Sioux or Dakota: the Mdewakanton, Sisseton, Wahpeton, and Wahpekute (often lumped erroneously as "Santee Sioux," a corruption of Issati which was another name for the Mdewakanton whose range extended into west central Wisconsin). Peaceful interaction with non-Dakota people required establishing bonds of kinship through intermarriage, adoption, or ascription.
The first three chapters deal with the ecological adaptations of the Dakota at the time of contact, the impact of European diseases, and the relative recency of the hostility between the Dakota and Ojibwe-popularly believed to reach back to time immemorial. In succeeding chapters, Anderson describes how the eastern Sioux incorporated French, British, and Americans as kin as each group, in turn, held sovereignty over the Dakotas' territory. He notes how whites learned and acted upon their roles 198 as "fathers" and "brothers" to further trade in the guise of gift exchange appropriate to kinsmen. As kin, they also insinuated themselves into tribal deliberations and decision making to their own advantage. The basic theme is that their Indian kinship became ever less important to the whites as the fur trade dwindled and American interests turned to acquisition of Indian land for white settlement. The trader kinsmen were replaced in large measure by different kinds of whites-the military, missionaries, government administrators, and European immigrants. The Indians fell out among themselves in trying to cope with the new order.
Traditionalists, according to Anderson, clung to the forlorn hope that treaty annuity payments for land losses meant the great father, the president, planned to subvent the old roving and hunting way of life as game and other resources diminished. Other Dakota accepted that they would have to learn new ways to support themselves by emulating white farmers. Contrary to the expectations of their white mentors, even the cooperative Dakota did not envision abandoning their entire identity as Dakota people. When the pressures became intolerable for the traditionalists and they resorted to violence, even some of the "acculturated" Indians were drawn into the fray, but it was not simply a racial war of Indians against whites, as the pattern of killing and sparing reflected recognition of obligations to those whites still perceived as kinfolk. This is perhaps the strongest point made in the book in regard to demonstrating the persisting significance of kinship for the Indians.
Comments
Copyright 1985 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln