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By the summer of 1866, America was a changed nation. The Civil War has ended, and the West was calling as a place where the fresh wounds of a nation divided could heal. Many set out to heed that call and explore the land that the terrible war had not touched. Amid the beauty of the region, they found its native inhabitants-and a bloody collision of two cultures.
To the Lakota people, the white man-the wasichus-appeared first as a curiosity but soon turned into a plague. Frustrated and powerless, the proud Lakota Sioux war leader Red Cloud watched helplessly as the wasichus became as plentiful as the grass on the fields, draining the land of its resources, and introducing metal guns and knives, along with the water that makes men crazy. Red Cloud knows that if something is not done soon, there will be no land for his infant son to call his own.
To some he was controversial, to others he was charismatic, but in an unprecedented act, Red Cloud unites the Sioux with the Cheyenne, Arapho and Crow, assembling over three-thousand warriors in what will go down in history as "Red Clouds War."
It was an act that would never be equaled, as the Indians defeat the white man in battle after battle, finally bring the U.S. government to the bargaining table, where they sue for peace.
Told with stunning humanity, Fred Chiaventone makes these historical figures, on both sides, living, real people. Combining vivid historical panorama with gritty and realistic drama. He has created a major narrative about a critical period and the pivotal figures on a frontier that won't know peace for decades.
June 16, 2003
