Book description
On a hot June morning in 1975, a shoot-out between FBI agents and
American Indians erupted on a reservation near Wounded Knee in South
Dakota. Two FBI agents and one Indian died. Eventually four Indians,
all members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were indicted on
murder charges, Twenty-two years late, one of them, Leonard Peltier,
is still serving two consecutive life sentences.
The story of what really happened and why Matthiessen is convinced
of Peltier's innocence, forms the central narrative in this classic
work of investigative reporting. But Mathiessen also reveals the
larger issues behind the Pine Ridge shoot-out: systematic
discrimination by the white authorities; corporate determination to
exploit the uranium deposits in the Black Hills; the breaking of
treaties; and FBI hostility towards the AIM, which was set up to bring
just such issues to light.
When this book was first published it was immediately the subject of
two million-dollar legal actions that attempted to suppress it
permanently. After eight years of court battles, ending with a Supreme
Court judgement, Mathiessen won the right to tell Peltier's and his
people's story.
Peter Matthiessen is a naturalist, explorer and writer. His works of
fiction include
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
,
Far Tortuga
and the acclaimed 'Watson Trilogy'. His explorations have resulted in
many fine works of non-fiction, among them
Birds of Heaven
,
The Cloud Forest
and
The Tree where Man was Born.
In November 2008, at age 81, he received his second National Book Award
for
Shadow Country,
an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s.
