The Lakotas and the Black Hills

August 1, 2010

This concise and evenhanded review of Lakota Sioux claims to the Black Hills is a welcome addition to American Indian legal literature. Expanding upon the very personal telling in Edward Lazarus's Black Hills/White Justice, Ostler (history, Univ. of Oregon; The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee) studies the full history of Sioux efforts to reclaim the Black Hills, right up to the present. Balancing many points of view in a succinct text, Ostler discusses claims of other American Indian nations, Black Hills gold and its historic significance, the creation of Mount Rushmore, the Sioux victory in the U.S. court of claims and subsequent refusal to accept a cash settlement, the American Indian Movement's (AIM's) 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, and a congressional attempt to turn over federal lands to the tribes. VERDICT Drawing on interdisciplinary studies, including the views and ethnohistory of the Lakota Sioux, Ostler provides a comprehensive recounting of this legal claims odyssey. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries and to individuals trying to make sense of long-standing cultural tensions in the Black Hills of the northern plains.--Nathan E. Bender, Laramie, WY

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July 1, 2010
Combining historical and legal threads, Ostler surveys the contest between the U.S. government and the Lakota Indians for title to the Black Hills in South Dakota. Weighing evidence of the Lakotas presence in the Black Hills in the 1700s, Ostler elaborates a more solid historical footing for Lakota claims based on the sacred significance the Black Hills had acquired by the mid-1800 lifetimes of such renowned Lakotas as Sitting Bull. Phasing into treaties culminating in the cession of the Black Hills in 1877, Ostler concisely defines treaty terms or violations that gave legal traction to Lakota litigation. That got going in the 1920s, though slowly: the case wended through the judiciary for 20 years until it was dismissed by the Supreme Court. In 1980, however, the tribunal reversed itself, acknowledging treaty violations and ruling in favor of monetary compensation. Refused by a people wanting the land, not the lucre, the settlement remains in limbo. An evenhanded scholar, Ostler offers a case study that illuminates Native American claims for redress of history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)