TRWR: Consider Sam Wicklow’s published book

The Great Sioux Uprising was Sam’s original idea for the book. When Sam interviewed Noah as research for the book, Noah clarified that schools teach that the Dakota are savages who rose up against their neighbors and slaughtered them. “In Black Earth County, it’s the whites who believe they were set on unfairly, cruelly and have the right to carry all that hatred in their hearts.” But it was the Dakota who had been lied to, cheated, starved, their land and everything on it stolen; they were angry and desperate. Bluestone recounted the story of his great-great-grandfather Takoda who warned white settlers of the intent of some Dakota. He was tortured, mutilated and hanged at Inkpaduta Bend by either Dakota or white. It was a divisive conflict, even among the Dakota, resulting in the death sentence for over 300 men. Abraham Lincoln commuted the sentence for all but thirty-nine. One of those received a last minute reprieve. On December 26, 1862, thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged at the same moment, the largest “legally” sanctioned mass execution in American history. When I read about any injustice like this, it brings to mind the most powerful book I think I have ever read: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Spirit River was the novel that Sam actually wrote, a fictionalized account of events of that summer when Jimmy Quinn and Noah Bluestone died. I don’t know that it rectified history because Charlie says that Sam didn’t know everything that she did nor secrets revealed to her over the years.

I am not entirely sure Sam Wicklow’s book entirely rectified history; that may be impossible for a single person or the most eloquent writing to do. It is Sam,though, who sees clearly the injustice and historic prejudice at play in charging Noah Bluestone with Jimmy Quinn’s murder. It is Sam who has the courage and decency to write editorials championing Noah and exposing the prejudice against him. In that context, Sam absolutely rectified history.