The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground (Penguin's Library of American Indian History)
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. --Gilbert Taylor