An infuriating portrait of injustice

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	• In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Peter Matthiessen Penguin (Non-Classics), 1992 - 688 pages average customer review:based on 25 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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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An infuriating portrait of injustice

I'm often deeply suspicious of writing as political as one finds in this book - I greatly admire Matthiessen's writings on travel, nature and Buddhism, but found his novel "At Play In The Fields Of The Lord" a bit ham-fisted in its' approach, even when I agreed with it's sentiments.

But after a few reads, several years apart, IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE stands as a great, damning document - it's a piece of work that is impressive and massive, and will leave you infuriated.

The entire work is built around the trial and conviction of Leonard Peltier, and rather than simply recount the events or press an agenda, Matthiessen goes to meticulous lengths to contextualize and cover every side of the background. The history of the Sioux Lakota is covered extensively, as are the social conditions (health, income, education, and the infamous violence) on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The AIM (American Indian Movement) emerges on Pine Ridge, and it should be noted that the reservation is officially two counties - Shannon and Jackson, which were administered from elsewhere in the state, and run by Bureau of Indian Affairs appointees, instead of by an elected government (the case in most US counties). These appointees' extreme and unorthodox tactics in administering the reservation dovetailed nicely with FBI surveillance and subversion of suspected subversive groups, including AIM, and the paranoia generated set the stage for the firefight and subsequent trial.

Matthiessen expends considerable effort in the attempt at giving both sides a space to speak, not extremely successfully from an objectivity standpoint, but well enough for the purposes of this book: Matthiessen also unearths and publishes a vast array of court transcripts and legal documents; a certain point of view does begin to emerge, and Matthiessen admits where his sympathies lie, but generally, this is a book in which the FBI and various individuals within the government of South Dakota hang themselves with their own words. And they do this consistently, over hundreds of pages, and when afforded many opportunities by Matthiessen to justify or clarify themselves, they fail to do so repeatedly.

Such Machiavellian governmental machinations were an unfortunate part of the political landscape during the Nixon era (this has not necessarily changed with the passage of time); this is one of the most devastating documents of that ruthlessness (see William Shawcross' SIDESHOW for a second, scary glimpse at this political tendency), and Matthiessen - through meticulous investigation and research - goes out of his way to be fair. Give this dense and - at times - difficult book some patience; the history lessons and legalese do have both a point and a payoff - this is a far more infuriating document of injustice than any simple agenda-based hatchet job could ever be.

-David Alston

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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~]

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Remarkable read.

This is an distubing yet fascinating book. Matthiessen has such a gifted way of putting the reader into the reality of the situation. Not a book for a reader who believes that the government is all good and correct, or maybe it is. Justice for 'face saving' and 'revenge'.
Terrible events and wonderful writing!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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