The Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars. Hugh J. Reilly. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. 162 pp.
Nineteenth-century U.S. press culpability in encouraging heavy-handed military solutions regarding the troublesome Plains Indians is always worth a study. In a word, then, Hugh J. Reilly’s The Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars is best described as useful.
Reilly, an associate professor of communication and Native American studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, has collected newspaper accounts and editorials of nearly thirty years of press coverage of what he calls “watershed” events involving primarily Sioux, Cheyenne, and Nez Perce Indians, and their tragic relationships with the U.S. government.
His rationale for what constitutes a “watershed” event pivots on the event’s historical significance and subsequent news coverage, as well as the newspapers’ proximity to the event. Not surprisingly, his case studies, beginning with the 1862 Dakota uprising in Minnesota and ending with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, show that with the possible exception of one Omaha newspaper (Omaha Herald, later Omaha World-Herald), editorial sympathies hardly ever lay with the Indians.
Even so, Reilly’s book, relying as it does on news accounts from Nebraska, Colorado, and Minnesota newspapers, provides a welcome examination of often ignored nineteenth-century newspapers outside major American cities, notably New York. “Unlike the large Eastern newspapers, which were reporting on events remote from their offices, the frontier newspapers were reporting about events taking place in their own backyards,” Reilly observes, although it is not clear how a Colorado newspaper, for example, was in the backyard of Wounded Knee, or how Omaha newspapers were proximate to the U.S. Calvary’s chase of the Nez Perce through Montana (or, for that matter, why the Nez Perce is considered a Plains tribe). As the chapters unfold, the author’s bias toward Omaha newspapers emerges. While not necessarily problematic because by the mid- to late-nineteenth century Omaha had become an important bustling river town with crucial links to the Union Pacific Railroad’s routes to points west, this preference needed some justification.
While it was likely not Reilly’s intention to duplicate Dee Brown’s sweeping Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee or John Coward’s important The Newspaper Indian, inevitable comparisons do not favor this book, which lacks the strong, graceful narrative arc of Brown’s history or the theoretical depth of Coward’s. While heavy on newspaper excerpts, it is light on analysis, giving the book a rushed feel. This is too bad because missed opportunities for original analysis abound here. I was surprised, for example, by the sympathetic voice found in the Omaha Herald (and Omaha World-Herald) compared to its yellow rival the Omaha Bee, whose accounts of Indian trepidations were usually wild exaggerations. While a reviewer should not base critiques on wishful thinking of what might have been written, it seems Reilly had some unexplored territory to exploit but did not. Inevitably, the book’s consistently thin analysis lessens the book’s potential importance to our understanding of the nineteenth-century press and its treatment of Native Americans and to communication scholars.
For any work of history, the devil is in the details. In this regard, Reilly’s book, unfortunately, has several problems needing attention. In chapter 3’s opening sentence, he writes, “By 1868, the United States had been making treaties with Native Americans for almost 200 years.” The United States did not exist in 1668. In the Battle of Little Big Horn chapter, the author suddenly demotes General Custer to “Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.” Other careless mistakes include referring to Chief Justice Roger Taney as “Judge Tansy” or to John Coward as “journalist” and not journalism historian, or inferring that the telegraph was not in use when the Sioux defeated Custer, thus delaying news about the battle. Such errors reduce the book’s quality and the reader’s trust.
Understandably, Reilly cuts a broad swath here, trying to give the reader as many newspaper excerpts as possible, but he often fails to distinguish editorials from news items. Also, in citing newspapers, he assigns them human qualities, pushing his writing style toward clumsy. In one passage, he writes, “The Rocky Mountain News sarcastically suggested that ‘high officials’ should pacify the Indian.” Obviously, he means the newspaper’s editor suggested this, but the effect is startling. Writing elsewhere, he observes that, “. . . the Omaha newspapers had not yet fully developed the stereotypes they would later use so frequently.” Newspapers did not develop stereotypes. Such poor phrasing occurs throughout the book, signaling again the need for a close edit before going to press.
Still, Reilly does appear to know his subject matter, and despite the careless errors and lack of strong theoretical footings, The Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars gives the reader many rich examples from which future scholars can carve out new research projects. For example, the poignant excerpts from Suzette La Flesche, writing under the nom de plume Bright Eyes describing the pitiable state of Wounded Knee’s survivors, left me wanting to know more about her. So, for these and other examples, the book has merit.
BRIAN GABRIAL
Concordia University