He was L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, acclaimed world-wide as the Great American Fairy Tale. From 1888 to 1891, nine years before he published the first of his fourteen Oz books, Baum lived in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He edited a newspaper during the terrible time of anti-Indian feeling leading up to the killing of Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee. He twice wrote editorials calling for the extermination of the entire Sioux Nation. Baum was not alone in his horrifying calls for genocide.
Many historians believe that it was newspaper-induced hysteria that led to the massacre.
Baum's books are a sharp contrast to this call of genocide. Oz is a multicultural kingdom. Baum didn't practice that with the Lakota. The gift that Baum gives us is the mirroring of ourselves. Genocide happens not only because of the action of evil people, but also because of the inaction of the good-hearted.