Book Report: Among the Sioux of Dakota

Odd. When I read a passage about a man named D. C. Poole, I thought him interesting enough to look him up in the book's index. So I did. Found him and the title of the memoir he wrote back in the late 19th century after having spent some time (very little, actually) at the helm of a reservation agency on the Missouri in southeast South Dakota. 

What I knew was that the planned Whetstone Agency was just across the river from an area eventually settled by Dutch people, immigrant Dutch-Americans, including my own great-grandparents way back in the late years of that century. Also, I knew the government really wanted Spotted Tail, a powerful and charismatic Brule Sioux headman, to locate the Brule reservation there after the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty, at the eastern edge of the Great Sioux Reservation.

Maybe fifteen years ago, I was fascinated by Spotted Tail because he took a position in regard to the legions of white people moving into land where they'd wandered freely. Struck by the Ree, a Yankton, threw in the towel on fighting the white man; Crazy Horse, an Ogalala, like the Santee Inkpaduta (Spirit Lake Massacre) and the Hunkpapa Sitting Bull, never did. 

Spotted Tail, never stopped fighting in other ways that all-out war, like refusing the government's directive for him and his people to live on the west side of the Missouri River at the Whetstone Agency. Fifteen years ago, I read D. C. Poole's Among the Sioux of South Dakota to find out more about this Spotted Tail, a man so highly revered by the Brule Sioux on the Rosebud Reservation that they named their college after him. Spotted Tail (Sinte Geleska) is real Hall-of-Fame material. 

Spotted Tail wanted nothing to do with Whetstone Agency because it was too blame close to white people--just across the river, in fact, far too close to chiseling whites who peddled booze to Indians, lots of it, and made good but dirty bucks in the process. In fine Lakota tradition, Spotted Tail was a great chief because he cared about his people. I found his story fascinating, still do. There's more, lots more.

So I found this man named Poole in the book's index, found his book in the bibliography, looked it up on Amazon--I have a thing for old books I can get used and cheap--and, lo and behold, recognized the cover, even though I hadn't recognized the title. I had the book. 

The hunt began. Took me a while--I don't, to say the least, have the patience for order a good librarian must. But, sure enough, there it was. I pulled it out, flipped through its pages--it's neither big nor long--and found all kinds of notes I'd scribbled in the margins--and forgotten. Not before in my life had I ever read the same book twice, the second time not remembering the first. 

In my own defense, I had different motivations. A decade ago, it was Spotted Tail; this time it was Poole himself, the man who'd written the memoir, the man's whose very short experience on the reservation was very much at the heart of things. Last time I looked for Spotted Tail; this time I listened to D. C. Poole.

And I liked him--that's the bottom line here. I'm prejudice, of course: Poole was Dutch, no relation to my great-grandparents of any of their ilk, but American Dutch (or Dutch-American), born and reared among the Dutch in New York, who, by 1870 or so, had already been on the continent for a couple of centuries. 

But Poole as writer is interesting. He's smart, clearly fascinated with what he'd learned, and a fan of irony, which makes reading him a delight. This unorganized library behind me includes a hundred volumes of Western American history, most of it about Native America. Trust me, thoughtful skeptics are hard to come by. Does Poole hold enlightened 21st century attitudes toward First Nations? No. He's as much a product of his time as I am. Does he recognize injustice? Yes, even if he's the appointed judge of such things. Does he respect Native people? More than many of his contemporaries. 

And, as a writer, he has an eye for telling detail. When the government reparations (the goods--food and clothing and farm implements) arrive at Whetstone, they include white man's clothing, wool pants, among other things. The Brule thought trousers quite novel, but proceeded to cut off the legs and pull them up on their own, tossing the rest of the pants in the trash. He has an eye for telling detail. 

Like so many other Native people, Spotted Tail and some of his lesser headman, are sent off to Washington to meet the Great Father, President Grant. The description is delightful. Poole remembers the fascinating detail of things said and done that reveal the immense gulf between cultures for the first time brought into confluence with each other. One of the Brule reflected on a visit to the President by saying that he'd be more than happy to make a new life by farming if he could live in a big White House like that one. 

You have to want to read such stuff, I suppose. I can't help but think that it's silly to recommend a book that was likely read, last week, by no one else in the world. Furthermore, it helps greatly to know more about the time and the people and the history of what never materialized at the Whetstone Agency because Spotted Tail simply refused to listen to the government and never took his people to live on the west side of the Missouri. Never did. 

In his own way, Spotted Tail was a Crazy Horse, just never "hostile" about it. D. C. Poole's experience with him and with his people is a delight to read, even twice.