Prairie Man: The Struggle between Sitting Bull and the Indian Agent James McLaughlin by Norman E. Matteoni (review)

When invited to review this book, I was excited for the opportunity to delve into current scholarship on the relationship between Sitting Bull and Indian agent James McLaughlin. Most Native American and western historians are familiar with the story of the conflict between these two men that led to the assassination of Sitting Bull on December 15, 1890, by Indian police sent by McLaughlin to arrest him. This set off a chain of events culminating in the December 29, 1890, massacre of over 200 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that this book would not provide any new historical insight; instead, it simply reiterates the same narrative presented by historians such as Robert Utley. While the author’s bibliography is extensive, in reading the text it is obvious he ignored other works that might have supplied him with a Lakota cultural perspective and fuller historical context. For instance, the author titles one chapter Papa Sapa, which is not how Lakota refer to the Black Hills. Originally, Lakota referred to them as He Sapa, which translates to Black Mountains, but more recently, to accommodate English speakers, the Lakota also use the name Paha Sapa, which translates into Black Hills. Worse than the misspelling of Lakota words is the author’s use of what he refers to in his endnotes as “interpretative dialogue,” a practice he uses to literally fabricate quotations. While making suppositions may be admissible among lawyers, which the author is by training, to do so and pass them off as fact is not acceptable among historians.

Additionally, the author’s secondary sources unfortunately include mostly non-Native works. While Matteoni includes the works of some Native authors and scholars like Ella Deloria and Joseph Marshall III in his bibliography, from the endnotes it is obvious he relied primarily on a handful of non-Native sources. Even the author’s non-Native sources are lacking notable works from which he would have benefited. For instance, Royal B. Hassick’s 1964 seminal book, The Sioux, could have provided the author with additional cultural insight. Instead, the author relies on sources that, it may be argued, are outdated and biased. An example is the memoirs of James McLaughlin, whose bias the author himself recognizes when noting that McLaughlin was conscious of his public image, a fact borne out by the author’s own claim that McLaughlin “mastered how to effectively advance his position and counter an adversary” (66). The result is a book that, while easy to read, should not be considered a scholarly work any more than that of another self-identified historian, S. C. Gwynne, and his well-received but historically biased 2011 Empire of the Summer Moon.