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  • Converting the Rosebud: Catholic Mission and the Lakotas 1886–1916 by Harvey Markowitz
  • Michael F. Steltenkamp
Converting the Rosebud: Catholic Mission and the Lakotas 1886–1916. By Harvey Markowitz. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018, 320 pp. $34.95.

Converting the Rosebud covers just thirty years of Sicangu Lakota history but sheds light on the Indian world as a whole. Chapter 1 addresses “federal-Indian relations” that gave birth to the reservation system nation-wide. The author shows that Catholic missionary efforts did not exist in a vacuum, but contended with Protestant reformers who wielded considerable influence over Indian policy.

Chapter 2 shows how President Grant’s assimilationist “Peace Policy” set the stage for disputes between Protestant-based “Friends of the Indians” and the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. This period sought reforms that would bring new life to Indian America, but Christian churches were at odds in determining which strategies to pursue. How this interplay came to bear on the once-sovereign Lakota is the focus of chapter 3.

Chapters 4 through 6 report Bishop Martin Marty’s stewardship of the Dakota Territory, his relationship with Father Francis Craft, and his recruitment of nuns and priests exiled from Germany who founded Saint Francis Mission. Chapter 7 reports the trials and tribulations of building a school and church—especially when having to contend with an agent who harbored anti-Catholic sentiments. How catechizing unfolded in both the school and reservation at-large is the focus of chapter 8.

Readers learn in chapters 9 and 10 the cultural, governmental, denominational, geographical, and “acts of God” challenges that faced the missionaries. Father Pierre DeSmet and Spotted Tail come to life in chapters 11 and 12, and the Sicangu receptivity to Jesuit presence is seen as an admixture of political, social, and religious interests at play among both Lakota and non-Lakota actors.

Chapter 13 explores the Sicangu appropriation of Catholicism— their internalization of, and modification to, its spirit and practice. A concluding chapter tells of the terrible “fire that . . . reduced nearly all [End Page 71] of Saint Francis Mission to ashes” (226). Two young girls were probably responsible for it, but both the agent and the Jesuit superior chose not to punish them. As Markowitz shows in a number of other instances, so here does he note how cultural differences made certain interactions quite problematic (in this case, prosecuting the miscreants). The fire prompted both Jesuits and Franciscans to wonder if their thirty-year presence should come to a close. In the end, both the Sicangu and missionaries drew upon their understanding of “the sacred” (wakan) to help them confront the many challenges of the early-reservation period.

The author acknowledges the assistance of numerous lay and religious consultants, so their perspectives perhaps enabled him, overall, to avoid the widespread, and facile, contemporary characterization of unfeeling missionaries taking advantage of noble, Native ecologists. Moreover, readers will appreciate the sources cited by Markowitz. Missionary diaries contain glimpses of reservation life that are often more descriptive than those found in other sources. This archival material is at Marquette University, and contains perspectives that Markowitz used to illuminate more fully the contact experience of a century past. A “post-script” might have provided a sense of how contemporary Jesuits, Franciscans, and Sicangu regard this period.

At times, some authorial biases seem to exist. For example, when speaking of DeSmet’s “propagandist subtext and pervasive ethnocentrism” (181), the author comes across as metaphorically pointing his accusatory forefinger at the priest (but his accusatory thumb points back at him). “Hoist with his own petard” (Hamlet, Act 3)! A similar, subtle bias likewise appears when Markowitz refers to “Catholic observances and paraphernalia [italics added]” (232). Instead of this sort of dismissive descriptor, it seems more appropriate to use terms such as “ritual instruments” or “liturgical materials.” Otherwise, one might get the impression that the author is negatively evaluating a culture’s religious repertoire (in this case, Catholic culture).

Surprisingly, Markowitz states that the Lakota would find it “absurd” to abandon their beliefs and practices “for the ways and teachings of a wanikiye (lifegiver) named Jesus” (182). Surely he knew that the Lakota Ghost Dance took...

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