Post by Dietmar on Aug 26, 2008 9:40:18 GMT -5
The best book I have read about Inkpaduta so far has been “Inkpaduta – The Scarlet Point” by Maxwell Van Nuys (self-published, 1998). It´s a rare one, so good to see that the University of Oklahoma Press will publish a new book about the Dakota leader soon:
Inkpaduta
Dakota Leader
By Paul N. Beck
www.oupress.com/bookdetail.asp?isbn=978-0-8061-3950-0#
I hope the book presents some new insights in the life of this famous Wahpekute.
Inkpaduta
Dakota Leader
By Paul N. Beck
Reassesses a Sioux warrior long presumed a villain
Leader of the Santee Sioux, Inkpaduta (1815–79) participated in some of the most decisive battles of the northern Great Plains, including Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn. But the attack in 1857 on forty white settlers known as the Spirit Lake Massacre gave Inkpaduta the reputation of being the most brutal of all the Sioux leaders.
Paul N. Beck now challenges a century and a half of bias to reassess the life and legacy of this important Dakota leader. In the most complete biography of Inkpaduta ever written, Beck draws on Indian agents’ correspondence, journals, and other sources to paint a broader picture of the whole person, showing him to have been not only a courageous warrior but also a dedicated family man and tribal leader who got along reasonably well with whites for most of his life.
Beck sheds new light on many poorly understood aspects of Inkpaduta’s life, including his journeys in the American West after the Spirit Lake Massacre. Beck reexamines Euro-American attitudes toward Indians and the stereotypes that shaped nineteenth-century writing, showing how they persisted in portrayals of Inkpaduta well into the twentieth century, even after more generous appreciations of American Indian cultures had become commonplace.
Long considered a villain whose passion was murdering white settlers, Inkpaduta is here restored to more human dimensions. Inkpaduta: Dakota Leader shatters the myths that surrounded his life for too long and provides the most extensive reassessment of this leader’s life to date.
Paul N. Beck is Professor of History at Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee, and author of The First Sioux War: The Grattan Fight and Blue Water Creek, 1854–1856.
www.oupress.com/bookdetail.asp?isbn=978-0-8061-3950-0#
I hope the book presents some new insights in the life of this famous Wahpekute.