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In the Spirit of Crazy Horse |
Author: Peter Matthiessen
Published: 1992-01 |
List price: $17.95
Our price: $12.21
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As of: November 21st, 2008 12:57:03 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Leonard Peltier!
This is a very in depth look at Leonard Peltier and the continuing plight of the people on the Plains. In 1975 members of AIM shot and killed 2 FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Four men were accused one man Leonard Peltier went to prison for it. Peltier is considered a political prisoner. He is still imprisoned. This is the story about the political events surrounding this case. This book walks you through the timeline and events surrounding what happened on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975 and takes you through a very botched up trial.
"Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act." Leonard Peltier
At very rare times the books content was dry, it had to give you facts, so not the fault of the author. Overall, I think that it reads very well, it is a history and it is about Leonard Peltier and his trial. My copy is completely worn out!
 Textbook Example
Bestseller or no this thing reads with all the flair of a high school history book. Dry, brick-like text, whose only narrative flow seems to be the chronology of it's chapter heads. How you can take cowboys and indians, soldiers and cops, politics and injustice, and make them dull reading is a mystery, but here it is. Good stuff for your research paper I imagine but if you're looking for a page-turner you might find more craft in the FBI files.
The Iron Horsing Continues
Those interested in the history of Native Americans will know that relatively few books cover the travails and challenges faced by Indians in the present day. This classic by Matthiessen is one of the best investigations in recent memory of how Indians still face a variety of hardships and harassment caused both by modern social problems and the legacy of their cultural annihilation. Matthiessen's topic here is the brief notoriety of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the early-to-mid 1970s, culminating in the much-discussed case against Leonard Peltier for the murder of two government agents.
Here Matthiessen covers not just the story of Peltier and AIM, but also the historical influences that culminated in the bloody 1975 confrontation in South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation. Matthiessen did an immense amount of research and delivered a highly compelling account of Peltier and the shootout, revealing that the situation was far more complex than is commonly believed (or reported in the mainstream press). The reader will find that Matthiessen does not necessarily find solid proof of Peltier's innocence. However, there is overwhelming evidence that Peltier definitely did not receive a fair trial, and a litany of Constitutional violations was committed by the illegitimate tribal government and its goons (the main source of animosity with AIM), federal agents, state and federal politicians, judges and lawyers, and prison officials.
The complex relationships among these parties, the unhappy history of the Pine Ridge Indians, and modern social problems were all at play in a situation far more complex than a simple shootout between an Indian militant and some agents. Government watchdogs will also be sickeningly familiar with the propaganda and misinformation exercised by the feds as Peltier was railroaded into prison, especially in view of the government's weak case against him. At the very least, Peltier's sentence was excessive and several government employees got off the hook for the horrors of that fateful day in 1975. And in the end, this powerful book proves that the railroading of Indians who resist the advance of American hegemony did not come to an end back in the 1800s. [~doomsdayer520~]
 History paid for
History paid for.
The fundamental fact that Peter Matthiessen didn't mention in his detailed account of the American Indian Movement, the so called "Reign of Terror" at Pine Ridge in the early 1970s, the brutal murder of two severely wounded and defenseless federal agents and the trials of Leonard Peltier and his co-conspirators, is that while researching, interviewing and writing ITSOCH, he was under contract to share the profits with Leonard Peltier. That guaranteed him unlimited access. Hardly objective reporting.
Matthiessen did however go through great lengths to provide a tremendous amount of detail even if the bulk of it came from the usual suspects themselves.
In the end though, he was also convinced of Peltier's guilt. He shunned Peltier's only real alibi, that someone else, a Mr. X, whom they all knew and Matthiessen skeptically interviewed. Matthiessen was "Taken aback by this unexpected story." And when it came down to the basic facts of the killing of the two FBI agents he said "If there is another persuasive explanation of the location and position of their cars, I cannot find it."
Matthiessen also reported that one of Peltier's key attorney's, Williams Kunstler believed Peltier was guilty as well: "I know Bill Kunstler (another of the AIM lawyers) thought they killed the agents, but he believes that they were innocent whether they did it or not."
But it must be inordinately embarrassing for Matthiessen, The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Peltier, and his supporters to know that someone of the stature of Alan M. Dershowitz, the distinguished Harvard law professor, said that Matthiessen "is utterly unconvincing - indeed sophomoric - when he pleads the legal innocence of the individual Indian criminals. The American Indian Movement - like every militant fringe group - contains its share of violent criminals who seek to glorify their predatory acts under the flag of the movement." "...(and) not only fails to convince; he (Matthiessen) inadvertently makes a strong case for Mr. Peltier's guilt. (New York Times, book review March 8, 1983.)
Because it provides much detail, ITSOCH is a good reference for comparing prior statements of the participants in the murders of special Agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams to their later contradictions and subsequent claims, all of which have changed over the years. It does serve as a good foundation and litmus test to further demonstrate Peltier's guilt.
Best History of AIM
This is a sweeping history of the American Indian Movement and Indian activism in the 1960s and 1970s. It covers the major events such as the siege of Wounded Knee and the arrest of Leonard Peltier. It examines in detail the Oglala Sioux reservation at Pine Ridge and its chairman Dick Wilson and his battle with AIM and Russel Means. Other AIM leaders such as Dennis Banks are examined as are the various trials sourounding AIM activism. Those are the books strengths, its weakness is that it does not give a good overview of the state of Native Americans in the U.S in thsoe two decades, concentrating instead on the places where activism took place and where shots were fired. However their were another hundred reservations where such things did not take place, including large reservations such as the Navajos and it would have be nice to learn more about politics and economies in these places.
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