Bookshot #183: In The Spirit of Crazy Horse

This book has been lurking on my shelves for years and I've taken a few runs at it now and again but I

finally finished it. I've been thinking about this and I can't remember when I purchased this book, but if I could pinpoint a reason why, it was probably moving to Mankato for grad school. No, I didn't buy this for a class, but once I moved there, I decided to try and learn a little about my new place of residence and that's when I found out that the largest mass execution in US history took place in Mankato. That's when I found out about the Great Sioux Uprising that tore apart southern Minnesota in 1862. I grew up, attended elementary school, high school, and four years of college about 200 miles away from where a lot of it happened and none of it ever came up in any history class I had ever taken, ever.

For people of color in this country, that's probably not all that surprising- given how many people had to learn about the Greenwood Massacre thanks to an HBO show about superheroes, but it disturbed the heck out of me. I'm a very white dude, so I figured the least I could do was grab a few books and try and learn a little about the stuff that was so conveniently glossed over in my education. 

So, that's more or less why In The Spirt of Crazy Horse landed on my bookshelf.

The book lays out the foundation of the American Indian Movement and the struggles of First Nations people against the US Government- more or less starting from the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 and working its way up to the shootout on Pine Ridge in 1975. Although it would probably be an understatement to say that the situation and treatment of First Nations folks in this country has never been more than varying degrees of 'bad', the early part of the 20th Century was especially grim- between government attempts at forced assimilation through the employment of schools to the struggle for sovereignty itself- in the wake of World War II and with the Civil Rights movement so active in the late 50s and early 60s, it's hardly surprising that you saw similar attempts from First Nations communities to organize and advocate for themselves.

Things like the occupation of Alcatraz (remnants of which can still be seen today) and the Trail of Broken Treaties as well as struggles over sovereignty, land rights, and fishing rights- some of which are still ongoing to this day where I don't want to call them 'high points' of activism, but they were major events in the mobilization of the First Nations people in the 60s and 70s.

By the mid-70s, however, the situation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation had deteriorated into almost open warfare between the government-backed tribal government led by Dick Wilson and the AIM members/traditional faction. There were several times when they were actively considering calling the military in-- which thankfully, the Pentagon declined their request because I'm sure the visual of the US Army squaring off against First Nations peoples near Wounded Knee would have gone over quite well on the res. 

The point is, by the time we get to 1975, things are bad, And it's here that Mattheissen starts unpacking the meat of the book, which is the shoot-out between two FBI agents and various AIM warriors that lead to the death of both FBI agents and a Native American. 

Here's where the book gets a little iffy for me. It's obvious that Mattheissen is on the side of Leonard Peltier in all of this- that's fine and given the historical reputation of the FBI (see: COINTELPRO, etc.) it might even be a necessary corrective to the narratives surrounding this shoot-out and the Peltier case. But, it gave me pause. I wouldn't say that I took all of this with a grain of salt because it's very obvious the author has done the work, done the research, and has combed through a lot of evidence and trial transcripts- many of the latter are actually presented verbatim in the book. But, if you read it, just know that he's picked a side and adjusted your opinions accordingly.

That being said, even after an incredibly detailed breakdown of the shoot-out and multiple chapters of trials that talk about the shoot-out, I am not sure why two FBI agents thought it was a good idea to go onto the reservation that day without significant amounts of back-up. The claim seems to be that they were attempting to identify the driver of a suspect vehicle but the FBI was also very much aware of the climate on the reservation at the time-- if you've contemplated sending in the actual US Army to restore order, then what the hell were these guys doing so far away from back-up? That was a question that I was left with after this book: why were they there? Why were they so far out on a limb chasing a suspect vehicle that they decided to take it on by themselves and just 'stumbled' into an AIM encampment and someone started shooting...

The subsequent trials did not exactly bolster the government case against Leonard Peltier. In fact, it becomes clear that other than three people dying, who did what, when on that day is kind of an open question. The government's conduct in multiple trials about this affair was not the conduct of people who know they have their man- it did however, feel like 'two FBI agents are dead and someone is going to do time for this.' I do think they bungled his extradition. I do think if given a fair trial outside of the Dakotas, I don't know if they would have convicted him. 

Am I convinced of his innocence? I don't know. Maybe-- the author just 'happens' to meet the alleged 'real killer' who is identified only as 'X" towards the end of the book. (Which is convenient from a narrative point of view, I have to admit.) I could see First Nations people wanting to protect one of their own and closing ranks about the killings-- but if you go to Wikipedia and do a dive on the page about this, you'll see that in 2002 an unnamed delegation told a media publication that Peltier did the deed. How much credence I can give to that, I don't know-- but I do know that I wasn't particularly convinced one way or the other by the book. I do think he would never and probably should never have been convicted based on the evidence at hand. Was he innocent? The book didn't give me an answer to that one way or the other.

The epilogue is low-key a fascinating coda to the events of the book because there was an eight-year battle to get this published at all as it had to go through multiple libel suits and court cases to get over the finish line. Some of the people named in this book- including a former governor of South Dakota were very insistent that it not be published at all. They were ultimately unsuccessful-- whether that says anything about the state of the case, I don't know. But it's... interesting, to say the least.

Overall: Dense, important, worth reading-- I will admit, this was a hard read and it took what felt like a very long time for me to get through, but I'm glad I did. I learned a lot. My Grade: **** out of ****