Review of Red Crow, Warrior Chief By Hugh A. Dempsey
In: Great Plains Quarterly, 1982
academicJournal
Zugriff:
At a time when Plains Indians are eagerly seeking to learn more of the history of their own tribes, Hugh A. Dempsey, curator of history at the Glenbow-Alberta Institute in Calgary, has effectively interpreted the nineteenth- century history of the nearby Blackfoot and Blood tribes through careful study of the lives and policies of their greatest leaders. In 1976 he gave us Crowfoot, Chief of the Blackfeet. Now he offers Red Crow, Warrior Chief, who was the recognized head chief of the Blood tribe during the late years of the nineteenth century. Both books have been solidly grounded in a quarter-century of thorough research in the published literature (including pioneer Alberta newspapers) and in widely scattered archives, as well as extended fieldwork on the reserves where the descendants of those chiefs reside. Older men and women have told their memories of the chiefs. Others have recalled episodes in the chiefs' lives as related to them by family members of an older generation who are no longer living. One of the author's sources on Red Crow was that chief's adopted but favorite child, Frank Red Crow. Fortunately for his readers, Dempsey has combined his thorough research with excellent judgment and a talent for writing lucid prose. I concur with Dempsey's opinion that the Blood tribe of Indians is fortunate to have been led over the past 140 years by a succession of wise chiefs who were members of a single family of the Fish Eaters' Band. That band's rise to prominence in the tribe followed the marriage of Red Crow's attractive and talented aunt, Medicine Snake Woman, to Alexander Culbertson, the American Fur Company's leading trader on the Upper Missouri in 1840. This connection helped her brother, Seen From Afar, to gain recognition as the most important chief of his tribe. His nephew, Red Crow, who was born in 1830, earned recognition as a chief in his own right by compiling an outstanding war record in some thirty-three actions against four enemy tribes, during which he demonstrated marked ability as a ...
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Review of Red Crow, Warrior Chief By Hugh A. Dempsey
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Ewers, John C. |
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Zeitschrift: | Great Plains Quarterly, 1982 |
Veröffentlichung: | DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln, 1982 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
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