WOUNDED KNEE Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre

After the Civil War the American government did everything possible to restrict, starve, cheat, and kill the Indians. The retributive battle of Wounded Knee took place four years after General Custer’s ignominious defeat and demise at the Little Big Horn. The story recounts how the Harrison administration and a Republican Congress wrenched ownership of the Sioux reservation from Sitting Bull’s helpless hands. Narrator Jonathan Davis inflects his voice by raising and lowering its volume, sometimes drifting off for the last word or two. He pauses just a little too long between sentences, thereby breaking the cadence and inviting ennui. The politics promised in the title comes at a high price as listeners must struggle to assemble the disorganized paragraphs about Democrats versus Republicans. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2011]