Inkpaduta—The Scarlet Point: Terror of the Dakota Frontier and Secret Hero of the Sioux
1999; University of Iowa; Volume: 58; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.17077/0003-4827.10313
ISSN2473-9006
Tópico(s)American Environmental and Regional History
ResumoInkpaduta, a renegade Wahpekute Dakota from Minnesota, is well known in Iowa history as the perpetrator of an 1857 incident that traditionally has been called "The Spirit Lake Massacre."After killing 32 squatters, Iiücpaduta and his small band escaped into present-day South Dakota.Van Nuys traces the life of the shadowy fugitive through Indian wars in Dakota Territory and the famous 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory.With the exception of Doane Robinson's A History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians, which was published in 1904, historians have portrayed Irücpaduta as a minor figure.Robinson, on the basis of rather dubious evidence, contended that Inkpaduta was a sigruficant tactical leader during the 1863-1865 fighting between the Sioux and the United States army in Dakota Territory.Van Nuys not only endorses the Robinson thesis, but grandly expands it.Thus, without substantiation, he describes Inkpaduta as being a virtual latter-day Pontiac or Tecumseh, whose goal in northwestem Iowa was to block the advance of the white agricultural frontier by forging an alliance with the Omaha and some Sisseton Dakota.In the Dakota Territory campaigns, according to Van Nuys, Inkpaduta was not only the key tactician, but the mentor of Sitting BuU and other chiefs as well.This work would have benefited iirunensely from rigorous professional editing.Van Nuys has considerable difficulty ascertaining basic factual information, critically assessing sources, and citing accurately and consistently.Overall, the book does little to enhance vmderstanding of either Ir\kpaduta or the plains Indian wars.
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