The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 99, July 1995 - April, 1996 Page: 420

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Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Rollings first examines internal tribal social/political organization and econo-
my, providing a sophisticated, well-reasoned analysis of the nature of persistence
and change in a nineteenth-century Native American nation. He establishes the
framework for an ensuing reconstruction of tribal history within the contexts of
social, economic, and diplomatic organization. In successive chapters he reveals
the cultural underpinnings of Osage relations with other tribes, responses to
Europeans as they arrived in the region, and reactions to eastern tribes such as
the Cherokee as the policy of removal forced them westward into the Osage
sphere. As with other native groups of the same era, inherent cultural flexibility
and openness to change at first had positive results (new goods, expansion
beyond subsistence economy, better lives), but ultimately had negative conse-
quences (social and tribal fragmentation). Rollings shows that the Osage
declined from political unity to fragmentation as they moved from a unified sub-
sistence economy to a diverse, regionally based market economy. In their vast
region, the Osage achieved hegemony, and then lost it, because of the operation
of external (Euro-American) influences on internal social workings. Because
individuals who accumulated economic wealth and power had no traditional
social avenue to political power, they were open to manipulation by outsiders.
The way lay open for Euro-Americans to divide one Osage group from another,
leaving the tribe powerless to prevent the loss of their land and their indepen-
dence by 1840.
In his broad-based research, Rollings faced a dilemma of finding primarily
white-generated, and presumably biased, records and descriptions of Osage life
and contact with other cultures. He resolved this problem by carefully investigat-
ing archeological and ethnological studies and tribal oral history. His successful
integration of these materials provides a model for the rigorous scrutiny of evi-
dentiary records, a model that should definitely be used to reexamine the histo-
ry of other Native American groups. Readable as well as scholarly, The Osage will
please specialists as well as students and general readers.
Edmond, Oklahoma DIANNA EVERETT
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock: Treaty Rights and Indian Law at the End of the Nineteenth
Century. By Blue Clark. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995- Pp.
xiii+182. ISBN 0-8032-1466-9. $37.50.)
Tipi Rings: A Chronicle of the ficarilla Apache Land Claim. By Robert J. Nordhaus.
(Albuquerque: BowArrow Publishing Co., 1994. Pp. 224. ISBN 1-885931-
oo-x. $21.95.)
Tipi Rings and Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock both stress the importance of Native
American issues in the twentieth century. They focus on western tribal lands
(the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache reservation in Oklahoma and the Jicarilla
Apache reservation in New Mexico), yet they are strikingly different books. Lone
Wolf is written by a scholar and Tipi Rings by a lawyer.
Blue Clark has written a scholarly analysis of the famed Lone Wolf case, in
which Kiowa leader Lone Wolf filed an unsuccessful lawsuit and the U.S.

January

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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 99, July 1995 - April, 1996, periodical, 1996; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101217/m1/482/ocr/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.

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