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  • Spotted Tail: Warrior and Statesman by Richmond L. Clow
  • Sean J. Flynn
Spotted Tail: Warrior and Statesman.
By Richmond L. Clow. Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2019. ix + 375 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95 cloth.

Richmond L. Clow has navigated the hazards of Lakota historiography to produce a multifaceted biography of Spotted Tail, the first since George E. Hyde's classic 1961 study. As did Hyde, Clow accentuates the war record, personal qualities, and diplomatic deftness that propelled Spotted Tail to a position of authority among the Sicangu Lakota. Yet Clow finds Hyde's "bias in favor of Spotted Tail" (4) and his depiction of him as a "flawless leader" (7) wanting. Clow's Spotted Tail is, despite his unrivaled political accomplishments, a proud and ambitious figure whose "unilateral decisions" (7) circumvented Sicangu traditions and led to his violent demise. Readers of this book, therefore, will acquire an appreciation for Spotted Tail's extraordinary leadership while encountering a new interpretation about his death at the hands of Crow Dog, his chief political rival.

Clow does not conceal his conviction that Spotted Tail was "the right leader for [the] destabilized times" (54). He cites the "positive difference" made by Spotted Tail in the aftermath of Custer's defeat, when the Sicangu chief "remained the conduit between combatant and peace camps" (162). A respected conciliator who impressed and disarmed government officials, he proved a stubborn negotiator over the Black Hills, the sale of which he "took a long-term view of . . . out of concern for the future well-being of his people" (120). Spotted Tail did not shrink from confronting officials over tribal relocation and education matters, and when addressing principal policymakers such as President Rutherford B. Hayes, he displayed a "confidence and polish" that made him "equal to anyone in the room" (167–68).

The feud between Spotted Tail and Crow Dog is never far from the author's mind. Disagreements over grazing fees, railroad surveys, and Indian police forces exacerbated personal animosities, though Clow pins much of the blame for the acrimony on Spotted Tail and his willingness "to disregard the boundaries of tribal protocol" (232) when conferring with government officials, who, it should be remembered, were not bound by such protocols. Spotted Tail's pride, ambition, and unilateral behavior led to his demise, asserts Clow, though one could rejoin that these same qualities have been exhibited by every statesman since Pericles. Nor were Spotted Tail's ambitious enemies blameless, the author himself referencing Crow Dog's goal of "dividing the Sicangus, which only heightened Spotted Tail's dislike for his rival" (246).

These observations aside, Clow succeeds in introducing a new generation of readers to a towering warrior-statesman whose deeds shaped the course of Great Plains history. [End Page 241]

Sean J. Flynn
Department of History
Dakota Wesleyan University
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