Red Cloud: Warrior-Statesman of the Lakota Sioux (Oklahoma Western Biographies, 13)

Opponents of the "Warrior-Statesman of the Lakota Sioux" (as the subtitle dubs him) criticized Red Cloud (1822-1909) as duplicitous. In Robert Larson's sympathetic appraisal, Red Cloud's deliberate deceptiveness was part of a delaying tactic to sustain Lakota culture in an increasingly hostile environment. Eventually concluding that the white invaders could not be stopped, the fierce fighter became a wily negotiator who wrung some concessions from the U.S. government as he presided over his people's transition from nomadism to reservation life. It's a sad story, told with sensitive awareness of history's painful ambiguities.