420 The Journal of American History and argues (rather unconvincingly) that "The objectives of the New South were realized" here (p. 3). After describing the physical characteristics of "the alluvial empire," he treats the postwar problems of heavy taxation and land forfeitures and then tells the complicated story of land speculations. He centers attention on the Illinois Central Railroad. Its absorption of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, its efforts to "upbuild" the region, its acceleration of business until the Delta lines became the most lucrative Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/54/2/420/750072 by guest on 02 October 2021 part of the system, all are described. Other topics are immigration, the boll weevil, high prices, long-staple cotton, local drainage projects, and convict labor. Brandfon concludes with an account of the successful suit instituted by the state against the Illinois Central for back taxes. In his opinion, this richest and best-known corporation in Mississippi was the scapegoat for anti-corporation hostility. The author made commendable use of the Illinois Central archives, other manuscript sources, legal-case files, and levee-board papers. If he had ex- amined the official records in all eleven Delta counties, as he did in Wash- ington County, and if he had used additional local newspapers, he might have brought the story closer to the grass roots. In his gleanings of unpub- lished monographs, he overlooked Ferguson's comprehensive dissertation, "Agrarianism in Mississippi, 1870-1900." Though the bibliography of printed sources ranges widely, it lacks an 1894 publication by a Mississip- pian, Otken's Ills o] the South, wherein contemporary economic problems are analyzed. The major fault of the book is its failure to fulfill the promise of the title. This is not a history of the Yazoo Mississippi Delta from Reconstruc- tion to the twentieth century. Rather, it is a story of selected economic de- velopments and their ramifications. A rounded-out study might deal with social and cultural life, the politics of Reconstruction, the Delta in the Con- stitutional Convention of 1890, the Negroes, the credit-and-lien system, and other topics. Perhaps Brandfon will enlarge and refine this volume into a much needed history of the Yazoo Mississippi Delta. MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY WILLIE D. HALSELL The Treaty of Medicine Lodge: The Story of the Great Treaty Council as Told by Eyewitnesses. By Douglas C. Jones. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. xv + 237 pp. Map, illustrations, notes, bibliog- raphy, and index. $5.95.) The councils of the Medicine Lodge Treaty occurred between October 12 and 29, 1867. On Medicine Lodge Creek in southern Kansas, southern and central-plains Indians conferred with federal treaty commissioners, Kansas officials, and Bureau of Indian Affairs representatives. The events of those seventeen days were observed by nine professional reporters who sent a Book Reviews 421 surprising number of accurate dispatches to their newspapers. Douglas C. Jones, through his painstaking study of those reports, has added a wealth of detail about the treaty and has contributed significantly to an under- standing of the personalities involved. Jones does not allow fullness of detail to impede the flow of his well- written narrative. He clearly sees how the details relate to the principal ob- jectives of the treaty--the determination of the United States officials to Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/54/2/420/750072 by guest on 02 October 2021 dominate and control the plains Indians. His characterizations of the news- papermen and those whom they observed are deft and perceptive. The reader often feels as if he were in the midst of the thousands of Indians and the handful of white men as Jones describes the sights, sounds, events, and ceremonies during the councils. Occasionally, however, Jones is inaccurate. The region about Medicine Lodge Creek is too far east to contain prairies "covered with a thick car- pet of buffalo grass" (p. 67). Those who know the Kiowas would hardly describe them as "delicate-featured" (p. 65 ). The author needlessly raises questions about the identity of the Apaches present at the treaty coun- cils (pp. 75-76). Relying too heavily upon an estimate of five hundred Apaches at the treaty grounds, Jones ignores the fact that crowd estimates are often imprecise and that an 1871 census places the Kiowa-Apache pop- ulation at 387. The differences in these figures can be reconciled quite easi- ly. It is important to note also that all of the Apaches who signed the treaty have been identified as Kiowa-Apaches (p. 151). The 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise reservation for the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahoes was also north of the Arkansas River, and all reservation lands for the same tribes under the Treaty of the Little Arkansas were south of the same stream (p. 10). Finally, William Bent sired five, not three, half-Cheyenne children (p. 77); and by 1867 New Bent's Fort was more properly known as Fort Lyon (pp. 209-10). UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA DONALD J. BERTHRONG The University of Rhode Island: A History of Land-Grant Education in Rhode Island. By Herman F. Eschenbacher. (New York: Appleton-Cen- tury-Crofts, 1967. x q- 548 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliographical note, and index. $8.95.) Historians of educational institutions have the double task of tracing changes in structure and of measuring (and hopefully evaluating) per- formance. In view of the lack of ready standards of measurement, it is not surprising that this study, like most university histories, deals more thoroughly with the educational apparatus than with the institution's output. Four themes integrate this history: the administrations of university pres- idents, wars and other major experiences of society, statehouse-university .