| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 37.1

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 37.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The First Sioux War: The Grattan Fight and Blue Water Creek, 1854–1856. By Paul N. Beck. (Lanham: University Press of America, 2004. x + 182 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $50.00, cloth; $28.00 paper.)

Blue Water Creek and the First Sioux War, 1854–1856. By R. Eli Paul. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. xii + 260 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.)

Paul N. Beck and R. Eli Paul rescue the First Sioux War, fought between 1854–1856, from historical obscurity. For most historians and aficionados of western studies the Grattan fight, or "massacre," is most noted for the fact that a Mormon's lame cow instigated a conflict between two previously peaceful peoples. The absurdity of the events leading up to the fight seemed to minimize its historical significance as the progenitor to later Plains wars. Moreover, later conflicts such as the American Civil War, Red Cloud's War, and the Great Sioux War, overshadowed both the Grattan fight and the engagement at Blue Water Creek.

In The First Sioux War, Paul N. Beck reveals significant influences this conflict had on later military strategies for both the United States and the Lakota. When the Oregon Trail opened in 1840, tensions grew between the Lakota and whites as environmental resources surrounding the fort began to dwindle. Hoping to maintain peaceful relations and protect travelers, the federal government sought a treaty with the Lakota. The Treaty of Fort Laramie was promulgated in 1851 and guaranteed safe passage for whites on the Oregon Trail in return for annuities and provisions.

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