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    Unavailable
    The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek: A Tragic Clash Between White and Native America
    Unavailable
    The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek: A Tragic Clash Between White and Native America
    Unavailable
    The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek: A Tragic Clash Between White and Native America
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek: A Tragic Clash Between White and Native America

    Written by Richard Kluger

    Narrated by Alan Sklar

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The riveting story of a dramatic confrontation between Native Americans and white settlers, a compelling conflict that unfolded in the newly created Washington Territory from 1853 to 1857.

    When appointed Washington's first governor, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, an ambitious military man turned politician, had one goal: to persuade (peacefully if possible) the Indians of the Puget Sound region to turn over their ancestral lands to the federal government. In return, they were to be consigned to reservations unsuitable for hunting, fishing, or grazing, their traditional means of sustaining life. The result was an outbreak of violence and rebellion, a tragic episode of frontier oppression and injustice.

    With his trademark empathy and scholarly acuity, Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Kluger recounts the impact of Stevens's program on the Nisqually tribe, whose chief, Leschi, sparked the native resistance movement. Stevens was determined to succeed at any cost: his hasty treaty negotiations with the Indians, marked by deceit, threat, and misrepresentation, inflamed his opponents. Leschi, resolved to save more than a few patches of his people's lush homelands, unwittingly turned his tribe-and himself most of all-into victims of the governor's relentless wrath. The conflict between these two complicated and driven men-and their supporters-explosively and enormously at odds with each other, was to have echoes far into the future.

    Closely considered and eloquently written, The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek is a bold and long-overdue clarification of the historical record of an American tragedy, presenting, through the experiences of one tribe, the history of Native American suffering and injustice.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 1, 2011
    ISBN9780307879295
    Unavailable
    The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek: A Tragic Clash Between White and Native America

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    Reviews for The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      As a transplant to western Washington, I followed the news of the historical court which considered the 150 year old case against Leschi, a Nisqually Indian leader who organized resistance to an unjust treaty. Kluger's narrative, based on very thoroughgoing research, covers the background, principal actors, and aftermath of the trial and conviction of Leschi, while making the case for his exoneration. Kluger doesn't stop there, but summarizes the subsequent history of the Nisquallys before relating the events leading to a joint resolution urging some kind of judicial exoneration of Kleschi and the successful effort to reconsider the case before a specially convened court.
    • 5/5
      This is an extremely well researched, thorough, and careful book. It explores the history of white settlement in the Puget Sound (Seattle, WA) area, through the story of Leschi, a leader of the Nisqually people. Leschi was an early friend of the British and American settlers, but was incensed by the poor treatment of the Washington territory governor's treaty demands, which gave native nations very small and horribly poor quality reservations. Leschi became a guerilla leader staging sporadic attacks on territorial troops in an effort to bring about a more fair treaty allocation for the Nisqually tribe. In the process, he became Gov. Stevens' singleminded focus, and when Leschi was eventually turned in and tried, the process was a farce of justice.

      The book wraps up the Leschi tale with a "historical trial" which found that Leschi should not have been tried as a civilian and hanged; but as a combatant in wartime should have been released when the nations were at peace. Finally, the book describes the current state of Nisqually tribal affairs, and their long-awaited hope for a future less desolate than their past under the white empire.

      I'm rounding up from 4.25 stars, because this story needs to be told. It's slow and plodding at times, with a dry names-and-dates feel in early chapters, but the story itself is full of twists, turns and intrigue.