Running for Your Life: Two Books to Read Next

“Red Son of God” meets “The Earth Is Weeping.”

What strikes me about these books of history (the former by Louis S. Warren and the latter by Peter Cozzens) is how little real progress has been made in understanding the plight of others.

Fake news? Just exactly what were the facts on the ground during the years covered in these titles (1860s-1890s)? Who spoke for the conquered, the Native American tribes, in the case of these accounts, those facing western expansion in the Plains states and Near West, and those ill-fated adherents of the Ghost Dance ("Red Son of God") that for a period in 1890 was as popular as Instagram is in 2017 with millennials? (Albeit the Ghost Dance, seen as a mystical portal of millenarian prophecies, seems better suited to use the term “millennials” to describe its believers.)

Accounts such as these, written a century and a half after the events themselves, deliver a home truth … It can take that long to set the record straight when it comes to public affairs.

If you don’t have the facts, you don’t even have “news” to fake.

Did “The Earth Is Weeping,” about the Indian Wars of 19^th century America, get big press when it was published last fall? Well, the author did go on tour: to Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis and Washington, DC. Not to the entertainment centers of New York and LA.

The Indian Wars have never made the headlines to match the importance of their role in the settling of America, which, startlingly, offers a mirror to just how tribal American political life is today.

Hopefully the facts as described in Cozzens’ book aren’t a surprise to Native Americans, especially when it comes to these descriptions of one esteemed leader, Crazy Horse:

“He dressed plainly, lived in poverty, and gave his best horses and the fruits of the hunt to the poor.”

“He shunned councils and peace talks – or anything that smacked of politics, scheming or intrigue.”

Crazy? Our politics could use a little Crazy Horse right about now.

Next: Running for Your Life: Men and Women of the Jury