Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre

✍ Scribed by Heather Cox Richardson

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 392
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

On December 29, 1890, five hundred American troops massed around hundreds of unarmed Lakota Sioux men, women, and children near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. Outnumbered and demoralized, the Sioux posed no threat to the soldiers and put up no resistance. But in a chaotic scene, the Americans opened fire with howitzers, killing nearly three hundred Sioux in what would become known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. In this definitive account, acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson shows that the origins of this quintessential American tragedy lay not in the West but in Washington, where would-be lawmakers, locked in a desperate midterm-election battle, sought to drum up votes through an age-old political tool: fear.

✦ Table of Contents

Praise
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction

CHAPTER 1 - A New Nation, a New Economy
CHAPTER 2 - A Divided Nation
CHAPTER 3 - The Westward March of Civilization
CHAPTER 4 - Managing the West
CHAPTER 5 - A Season of Desperation
CHAPTER 6 - Once Set in Motion . . .
CHAPTER 7 - The Massacre
CHAPTER 8 - The Aftermath

Acknowledgements
NOTES
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
INDEX
Copyright Page