History on the Lawn: Sitting Bull’s War

In recognition of Deadwood’s 150th anniversary of the Black Hills Gold Rush, Paul Hedren’s new book, Sitting Bull’s War, offers a powerful and deeply moving account of America’s greatest Indian war. Readers are drawn into the world of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne peoples and their determined struggle during the 1870s to preserve their traditional way of life on the buffalo plains. Those steadfast Northern Indians faced a succession of white invaders: railroaders, borderland surveyors, prospectors, and ultimately the United States Army. In the best of days, they turned George Crook back at the Rosebud and wiped-out George Armstrong Custer at the Little Big Horn (Battle of the Greasy Grass). But a dozen other clashes followed, and in the end those tradition-minded people could not endure the army’s endless hounding. Some fled to Canada to a luring if momentary exile, but in the end one and all faced impoverishment and privation. Sitting Bull’s War captures the essences of a people clinging to a traditional life of old before all was lost. Bring a lunch and enjoy the Historic Adams House lawn; 12:00 p.m.; free for members and $5 for non-members. In case of rain, the lecture will be moved to the Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center (HARCC).