Ruling Pine Ridge

"Incorporating previously overlooked materials including tribal council records, oral histories, and reservation newspapers, Ruling Pine Ridge explores the political history of South Dakota's Oglala Lakota reservation during the mid-twentieth century. Akim D. Reinhardt examines the reservation's transition from the federal government's direct colonial rule during the pre-1934 era to the indirect colonialism ushered in by the controversial Indian Reorganization Act (IRA)." "Reinhardt then examines the period of 1968-1973, showing that although the IRA governing system was well established by this point, deep dissatisfaction with the tribal council model persisted on Pine Ridge. This longstanding frustration came to a head in 1973, with the occupation and siege of Wounded Knee. Reinhardt demonstrates that the siege is best understood not as a political stunt of the American Indian Movement (AIM), but as a spontaneous, grassroots protest that was at least forty years in the making."--book jacket.