History of the Santee Sioux: United States In­ the United States adopted in those hundred dian Policy on Trial. By ROY W. MEYER. (Lin­ years to regulate Indian affairs. coln, University of Nebraska Press, 1967. Mr. Meyer organizes his story around the xvi, 434 p. Maps, illustrations. $7.50.) reservations to which the Santee Sioux were jnoved — the temporary Crow Creek Reserva­ Reviewed by Francis Paul Prucha, S.J. tion on the Missouri River in central South Da­ kota, the Santee Reservation in northeastern THE SANTEE were the eastern subtribes of the Nebraska, the Sisseton Reservation in north­ Sioux — the Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Sisse­ eastern South Dakota, the Devils Lake Reserva­ ton, and Wahpeton — who lived on the upper tion in North Dakota, and the small groups of Mississippi and along the Minnesota River. They Sioux at Flandreau, South Dakota, and in Min­ were the Sioux whom most travelers met in the nesota. He tefis how these Indians adjusted to early decades of the nineteenth century, and reservation life through the remainder of the they were the Indians who fought in the upris­ nineteenth century and then recounts the history ing of 1862. of the same groups in the twentieth. Mr. Meyer, a professor of Engfish at Mankato The work of the Indian agents, the disastrous State College, presents a remarkably compre­ effects of allotting lands in severalty, the at­ hensive study of these Indians. He describes tempts of the Indians to adopt the white man's their first contacts with the whites, the events agricultural economy, the results of federal edu­ and condidons that led to the uprising, and the cational programs, and the operation of the outbreak itself. This part of the account, al­ Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934 are considered in though carefully researched and weU presented, detail. The documentation is exceptionally fufi, has been told in detail before, and the author for Mr. Meyer has used the essential archival wisely devotes the greater part of his book to sources, augmented with newspaper accounts the history of the subtribes from the aftermath and whatever private papers were available. of the uprising to the present time. Here he The tone throughout is judicious and moderate, makes a significant contribution to our knowl­ yet the author's deep sympathy for his subject edge of American Indian poficy, for he traces is evident. what happened to the several groups when they Mr. Meyer's position is that, whereas the In­ were removed from Minnesota and describes the dians had to accept an agricultural life and give effect on the Indians of the various laws which up intertribal warfare if they were to share the continent in peace with the Europeans, it was Father Prucha, professor of history at Marquette not necessary to deprive them of other elements University in Milwaukee, is the author of Ameri­ in their culture, such as language, refigion, can Indian Poficy in the Formative Years (1962). dress, family relationships, and a preference for 95 Summer 1968 collectivism over individuafism. He concludes: troops always on the brink of mutiny, scurvy "The people who wanted to save the Indian rampant, and the Sioux ever poised to strike. might have accompfished more if they had tried Forts of the Upper Missouri not only reports to do less. But two conditions were required for the intimate, very human aspects of frontier mili­ the necessary culture change to take place: time tary life from "the low quality of the food . for the Indian to see the necessity for the change to the painful lack of available women," but also and to make it himself, and a place for him to effectively relates it all to the grand pattern of work out his destiny in comparative freedom westwai'd expansion. The pofitical, economic, from overt external pressure. Neither of these and mfiitary motivations of the army's advance was granted him." The attempted acculturation up the Missouri are clearly defined. We are of the Santee Sioux that he describes ended in given a running account of the infighting among poverty and demoralization. the War Department, the Indian Bureau, the This is a scholarly, not a popular book, but fur traders, burgeoning frontier business in­ no one can afford to miss it who is seriously terests, and the Minnesota-Dakota settlers. And concerned with Minnesota's history or with the back of it all we see the Indians fighting skillfully Indian poficy of the United States. but without hope — or standing patiently in fine for the government rations that would keep them alive a little longer. FRONTIER FORTS This is a very complex story and one that could easily become mired down in a bog of static detail. But the author keeps it rolling by Forts of the Upper Missouri. By ROBERT G. a skillful use of narrative technique — for ex­ ATHEARN. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, ample, the chapter on General Affred Sully's Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. xi, 339 p. Illus­ frustrating campaign against the Sioux. And the trations. $7.95.) extensive use of material taken directly from frontier newspapers, personal letters, officers' Reviewed by Walter O'Meara journals, and other contemporary writing gives ALTHOUGH numerous books and articles have one a sense of sharing life at the lonely prairie been written about individual forts, military posts and a new understanding of the Missouri campaigns, the fur trade, river travel, and other River frontier's iafluence on the settlement of related subjects, no work has ever dealt spe­ the West. cifically and in depth with the Missouri River Forts of the Upper Missouri is written in Mr. military frontier. Having noted this gap in Athearn's companionable style, with occasional American history, Robert G. Athearn proceeds flashes of ironic humor and always a keen per­ to fiU it with Forts of the Upper Missouri, a book ception for the human nuances of history. It that will fascinate every reader even casually in­ is a fine, scholarly addition to the American terested in the westward expansion of our nation. Forts Series inaugurated by Stewart H. Hol­ After the Sioux Uprising of 1862, the army brook. Since much of its story bears on the early acted as energetically as the general military settlement of their state, Minnesotans wfll find situation would aUow to protect settlers in Mui- it especially interesting. nesota and the Dakotas from the Indians and to guard the Missouri River route to Montana by STORY OF A HERO establishing a string of forts up the river from Fort RandaU to the base of the Rockies. Pro­ fessor Athearn's book describes in graphic detail The Last Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh. By WAL­ the building of these lonely outposts where the TER S. Ross. (New York, Harper & Row, 1968. garrisons lived in cold so deep that the guard xvii, 402 p. Illustrations. $7.95.) had to be refieved every fifteen minutes. It gives a vivid picture of officers frequently drunk, Reviewed by Russell W. Fridley THE THESIS of this well-written biography is Mr. O'Meara is the author of Guns at the Forks that Charles A. Lindbergh, by virtue of time, (1965). His new book. Daughters of the Country, circumstances, and native ability, was the last will he published in November. hero on the American scene. That is, he was the 96 MINNESOTA History last to perform an extiaordinary feat on his own FINNISH SETTLERS before the advent of the age of mass technology. Mr. Ross is careful to state that his work is History of the Finns in Minnesota. Edited by not authorized by the flier and was written with­ out access to Lindbergh's papers. The narrative, HANS R. WASASTJERNA. Translated by Toivo RosvALL. (Duluth, Minnesota Finnish-Ameri­ annotated and indexed, is woven from news­ can Historical Society, [1967]. xi, 676 p. paper accounts, articles, books, interviews, and Illustrations. $5.00.) conversations, and the author explains that, in order to produce a "reasonably accurate book," Reviewed by Michael G. Kami he has treated his subject as "what he is: a his­ torical figure, albeit a living one." AT LAST, through Toivo Rosvall's fine English Embelfished by well-chosen anecdotes, this translation, Hans R. Wasastjerna's History of fast-moving account fofiows Lindbergh from his the Finns in Minnesota is available to people birth in Detroit, his boyhood and early manhood who do not read Finnish. Commissioned by the in Little Fafis, his flight ti'aining and work as an Minnesota Finnish-American Historical Society, airmail pilot, to the epoch-making Atlantic the book was first published in Finnish in 1957. crossing in the "Spirit of St. Louis." Mr. Ross Its stated purpose was to bring together, and chronicles the flying colonel's happy marriage to thus to save, the vanishing historical material Anne Morrow and the tragic kidnapping-murder left by Finnish immigrants in Minnesota so that of their first chfld; he describes Lindbergh's col­ young American Finns could better appreciate laboration with Alexis Carrel in developing the their cultural heritage. automatic heart pump, his support of Dr. Robert Editor Wasastjerna, however, has done more H. Goddard, the rocket pioneer, as well as his than preserve a mountain of historical data. He role as an early advocate of American air power. has compiled an encyclopedia of Finlandia. To The author tells of Lindbergh's opposition to provide a suitable backdrop against which to United States involvement in World War II and see more clearly the struggles of pioneer Finns, of his association with the America First Com­ he begins with a long chapter which traces the mittee. He delineates the flier's quiet and survival of Finnish ethnic identity from its ori­ unofficial engagement in air warfare against the gins in the Finno-Ugric tribes through six hun­ Japanese in the Pacific.