In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI's War on the American Indian Movement
by Peter Matthiessen
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On a hot June morning in 1975, a fatal shoot-out took place between FBI agents and American Indians on a remote property near Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges for the deaths of two federal agents killed that day. Leonard Peltier, the only one to be convicted, is now serving consecutive life sentences in a federal penitentiary. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical show more resonance. In this controversial book, Peter Matthiessen brilliantly explicates the larger issues behind the shoot-out, including the Lakota Indians' historical struggle with the U.S. government, from Red Cloud's war and Little Big Horn in the nineteenth century to the shameful discrimination that led to the new Indian wars of 1970s. show lessTags
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This is a lengthly and sobering account of the American Indian Movement in the 60's and 70's, and the continuing conflict between Native Americans and the U.S. Government. There are references to broken treaties between our government and Indian tribes, racism, and the poor conditions on Indian Reservations. The main element of the book concerns Leonard Pelteir, convicted of murdering two FBI agents on a reservation during a shoot-out between Native Americans and the FBI. Apparently, the publishing of this book was delayed by eight years due to lawsuits brought by the FBI to prevent damaging information about its conduct leading up to the incident, and during the prosecution of the case. Matthiessen was clearly sympathetic to the Indian show more cause, but it's not hard to understand why. The book does a good job in telling a neglected story, but it's a sad reminder of past unjustices. show less
The story is told as a drawn-out series of accounts of the famous shoot-out at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975, but also concerning many other related events and combined with extracts of court transcripts and of the author’s interviews. Ultimately it’s never clear why FBI agents were at the shoot-out site initially, who shot whom when, and exactly what Leonard Peltier had to do with it. Most or all prosecutorial, FBI, and presented “witness” accounts seem unreliable, and there is now knowledge of either fabricated ballistic evidence or information that was withheld about ballistic evidence. The author was clearly personally involved in this, his sympathies are immediately and everywhere clear. He show more brings the story to us in a protracted repetitive fashion, but the main disappointment for the reader is that almost everything is left in the air, and although it seems clear that Peltier was picked by the FBI to take the fall and then received a sham trial, it is also clear that two FBI agents were murdered (it's not self-defense when you shoot a wounded man in the head), and that Peltier is a serial felon from adolescence. An account related to the author from an unnamed and disguised Indian "X" confessing to the murders given near the end of the book didn't seem to be a more reliable account than any other.
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I have had some interest in lying in the past, and I noticed that many of the stories told on both sides are of a type commonly used when lying (see the current liar-in-chief or, especially, Mr. Putin). If I ask you if you did something, a common truthful response might be "no", but a common untruthful response is, "Why would a person like me do something like that?". show less
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I have had some interest in lying in the past, and I noticed that many of the stories told on both sides are of a type commonly used when lying (see the current liar-in-chief or, especially, Mr. Putin). If I ask you if you did something, a common truthful response might be "no", but a common untruthful response is, "Why would a person like me do something like that?". show less
I cannot recommend this audio book. It was really long (23 Discs) and it was mostly depositions from trial documents.
It was interesting just the same, and I still may purchase the dead tree version for reference. It may be easier to follow then too.
Regardless if you want more information on the American Indian Movement (including Leonard Pelltere) and the adventures of the Natives versus the government in the 1970s, I recommend the autobiography of Russel Means "Where White men fear to tread" instead. There is an abridged 6 tape audio book available, but again dead tree is better.
It was interesting just the same, and I still may purchase the dead tree version for reference. It may be easier to follow then too.
Regardless if you want more information on the American Indian Movement (including Leonard Pelltere) and the adventures of the Natives versus the government in the 1970s, I recommend the autobiography of Russel Means "Where White men fear to tread" instead. There is an abridged 6 tape audio book available, but again dead tree is better.
This controversial book about controversial subject (AIM and Leonard Peltiers trial) is very important in itself, because it was collected mostly from interviews quite soon after the so called "reservation murders". However, nowadays its better to be familiar with more recent material from subject and so you can read this somewhat "between the lines". As said, the book is mostly from AIM informants interview and no wonder there´s a lot of unnecessary hodge-podge (how good person someone actually is/was and so on). On the other hand there´s quite little information you can really find non-controversial (like the case itself, ´till nowadays nobody is really too sure about it), because almost everything is from interview material. But, show more reading with this in mind, one can find this very much satisfying, book really tries to make a complete story from all this very much. The story is told around Leonard Peltier case which is quite understandable, because during writing this he was just becoming the symbolical "indian hero", he know is made. There´s a lot stuff about AIM and governments reaction to it too, which is really the main subject of the book, but the trial case being the main plot in this.
So, to fully understand this book (and to be able to judge peoples words at the time) one needs to have read more recent stuff about this too. Of course one can start from this too, there´s much things not mentioned widely elsewhere (its over 600 pages.), but as a fact you can not rely on almost anything. This can only give one guidelines from the subject and the happenings described. show less
So, to fully understand this book (and to be able to judge peoples words at the time) one needs to have read more recent stuff about this too. Of course one can start from this too, there´s much things not mentioned widely elsewhere (its over 600 pages.), but as a fact you can not rely on almost anything. This can only give one guidelines from the subject and the happenings described. show less
"The first solidly documented account of the U.S. government's renewed assault upon American Indians that began in the 1970's"
- Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
sisällysluettelosta:
Book I
Thieves Road: The Oglala Lakota, 1835-1965; The Upside-Down Flag: The American Indian Movement, 1968-73; To Wounded Knee: February-May 1973; The Wounded Knee Trials: January-September 1974; The New Indian Wars: AIM Versus the FBI, 1972-75; The U.S. Puppet Government: Pine Ride and Dick Wilson, 1975
Book II
The Shoot-Out I: June 26, 1975; The Shoot-Out II: June 26, 1975; The “Reservation Murders” Investigation: June-September 1975; The Fugitives I: July-November 1975; The Fugitives II: November 1975-May 1976; The Trial at Cedar show more Rapids: June-July 1976; The Trial at Fargo: March-April 1977
Book III
The Escape: Lompoc Prison and the Los Angeles Trial; The Real Enemy; Another Important Matter: Myrtle Poor Bear and David Price, 1976-81; Forked Tongues: The Freedom of Information Act and the New Evidence, 1980-81; In Marion Penitentiary; Paha Sapa: The Treaty, the Supreme Court, and the Return to the Black Hills; Red and Blue Days show less
- Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
sisällysluettelosta:
Book I
Thieves Road: The Oglala Lakota, 1835-1965; The Upside-Down Flag: The American Indian Movement, 1968-73; To Wounded Knee: February-May 1973; The Wounded Knee Trials: January-September 1974; The New Indian Wars: AIM Versus the FBI, 1972-75; The U.S. Puppet Government: Pine Ride and Dick Wilson, 1975
Book II
The Shoot-Out I: June 26, 1975; The Shoot-Out II: June 26, 1975; The “Reservation Murders” Investigation: June-September 1975; The Fugitives I: July-November 1975; The Fugitives II: November 1975-May 1976; The Trial at Cedar show more Rapids: June-July 1976; The Trial at Fargo: March-April 1977
Book III
The Escape: Lompoc Prison and the Los Angeles Trial; The Real Enemy; Another Important Matter: Myrtle Poor Bear and David Price, 1976-81; Forked Tongues: The Freedom of Information Act and the New Evidence, 1980-81; In Marion Penitentiary; Paha Sapa: The Treaty, the Supreme Court, and the Return to the Black Hills; Red and Blue Days show less
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Author Information
48+ Works 13,947 Members
Peter Matthiessen was born in Manhattan, New York on May 22, 1927. He served in the Navy at Pearl Harbor. He graduated with a degree in English from Yale University in 1950. It was around this time that he was recruited by the CIA and traveled to Paris, where he became acquainted with several young expatriate American writers. In the postwar years show more the CIA covertly financed magazines and cultural programs to counter the spread of Communism. While in Paris, he helped found The Paris Review in 1953. After returning to the United States, he worked as a commercial fisherman and the captain of a charter fishing boat. His first novel, Race Rock, was published in 1954. His other fiction works include Partisans, Raditzer, Far Tortuga, and In Paradise. His novel, Shadow Country, won a National Book Award. His novel, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, was made into a movie. He started writing nonfiction after divorcing his first wife. An assignment for Sports Illustrated to report on American endangered species led to the book Wildlife in America, which was published in 1959. His travels took him to Asia, Australia, South America, Africa, New Guinea, the Florida swamps, and beneath the ocean. These travels led to articles in The New Yorker as well as numerous nonfiction books including The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons of Stone Age New Guinea, Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark, The Tree Where Man Was Born, and Men's Lives. The Snow Leopard won the 1979 National Book Award for nonfiction. He died from leukemia on April 5, 2014 at the age of 86. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Harvill (100)
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- Canonical title
- In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI's War on the American Indian Movement
- Original title
- In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
- Original publication date
- 1983
- People/Characters
- Leonard Peltier; Leonard Crow Dog; Russell Means; Dennis Banks; John Trudell; Dick Wilson (show all 18); Anna Mae Pictou Aquash; Norman Brown; Dino Butler; Nilak Butler; Norman Charles; Jimmy Eagle; Wilford Draper; Wallace Little; Myrtle Lulu Poor Bear; David Price; Bob Robideau; Joe Killsright Stuntz
- Important places
- Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, USA; South Dakota, USA
- Important events
- American Indian Movement
- Epigraph
- We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on, and buffalo, deer, antelope and... (show all) other game. But you have come here; you are taking my land from me, you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live. Now, you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to. We do not interfere with you, and again you say, why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization! We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before the.
Crazy Horse (Lakota) - Dedication
- For all who honor and defend those people who live in the wisdom of Indian way.
- First words
- In 1835, five white prospectors who entered the old silences of the sacred mountains were attacked by Indians; their fate was scrawled in a last note, "All kilt but me."
Introduction: On June 26, 1975, in the late morning, two FBI agents drove onto Indian land near Oglala, South Dakota, a small village on the Pine Ridge Reservation. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I did it because I realized that that buffalo was very significant to that old man in some old-time way."
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 305.897073 — Social sciences Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Groups of people Ethnic and national groups Other ethnic and national groups North American native peoples
- LCC
- E93 .M46 — History of the United States America Indians of North America
- BISAC
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- 1,293
- Popularity
- 18,658
- Reviews
- 5
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- (4.09)
- Languages
- English
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 20
- ASINs
- 16