There is a tab that says book club and you can participate in the discussion. We will be posting video reviews and articles up there tomorrow. The discussion will begin tomorrow and we will be having a regular discussion question. I hope h you will be able to participate in winnings history for beginners is that february 2014 book club selection. Next on booktv the coauthors talk about their biography of the warrior red cloud the most successful and powerful native american in u. S. History created this is about an hour. Thank you all for coming out today and everyone associated with the National Archives museum. This is one of my favorite places. This is my second time here. We fought over who would get to this and we flipped a coin and you might have noticed when he introduced me i sounded like susan. All these things ive been nominated for and ive never won. [laughter] anyway, this book is a bit different. This book we feel and i hope that you feel when you read this it is basically an untold story until now about how one man created an empire if you will on the high plane. At one point, the territory included about one fifth of what is today the continuous United States. And if no one before, we dont think im a really knew what was going on in that territory around the Missouri River, the mississippi and the rockies. Early cartographers despite lewis and clarks exploration they labeled it to the Great American desert. And red clouds story, his narrative, his timeline fits with so much debt we didnt know there was no newspapers, there were a few mountain man and french canadian trappers. That integrates territory, no one knew what was going on in the 1820s, the 1820s come even well into the 1850s. And no one knew how red cloud had fought his war and one against the United States the only American Indians ever to win the battle against the United States people certainly knew who he was, that this whole narrative was i hope we found it a hoot and holler to research and reports. Report. I hope you find it the same. It was just so exciting. We spent a lot of time out west. From nebraska to my owning up to the dakotas and montana and we were a little trepidation is as when we first started the book. In the previous collaborations and there have been people to interview, there have been sailors that failed in world war ii. There were marines still alive that kept the road open coming out of the chosen, 189 million, 10,000 chinese to allow the division to get out of the chosen and there were certainly Marine Security guards alike to interview. Then mistakenly left in the roof in the saigon embassy. What we did find as our forebears were such literate people to be expecting maybe we get after action reports. Maybe the officers or officers life might have kept the journal. As it turns out every teachers wife kept a diary and we found all of these. Tom will explain to you at some of these University Libraries and historical centers, they would bring out a journal in a glass case where it would destroy development it was written on. He was killed last year by the indians, they dug up his grave. We think it might have been indians, that kind of stuff. So we felt like we were interviewing stuff for this book. We got into it so much we felt like we were living the lie it is with these people. That said, im going to have to give you a little of what we call the back story because you cant really understand red cloud without understanding the nation. So, i think i will go to page who am i kidding i bore myself when i read so how about how at tell you a couple stories. What was to become the sioux nation, they crossed the bridge some 15 to 13,000 years ago. We are not really quite sure where they started out from. From. Helio linguists have picked up parts of the sioux language is a part of the east carolina. What we do know is the precolumbian sioux what was to become the precolumbian nation was seven tribes, the tribes of the seven council fires. They followed north and settled in and a soda. Now, in minnesota, they were the bad in the Great Lakes Region and for centuries, they just made unending war on their predominantly neighbors, the chippewa, and they were vicious. The war was the ethos unlike other tribes. They had no nonviolent culture. They demand to grow food. They didnt even paint anything on their teepees or their shields. The war was their reason for being a and the first europeans, mostly french to look at the sioux, they were immediately reminded of the mongols and live to make more. That was their ethos and they were good at it and real good for centuries, hundreds of years they just dominated the region. But then what happened is when the english trading started to come into hudson bay and the chippewa lived closer to the day and they began trading pelt for guns and the tables turned. Once the sioux had been the hunter, now they were the hunted area once they had a violence what the europeans didnt understand watching in particular the sioux, but the American Indian culture in general is that wasnt violence for violence sake yes they fought to gain territory and bring home money but also the old cliche and the happy Hunting Ground, the sioux and most of the planes for that matter really be that there was an afterlife, that was a happy Hunting Ground, and it was filled with streams and game as far as you could see. A buffalo and elk and deer and antelope and beautiful maidens just waiting to be taken. But what happened was they believed that he went to this afterlife in the same way that you left. With the europeans didnt understand about the scalping and the mutilations if you went if your enemy went to the happy Hunting Ground with no eyes see how beautiful it was if you went with no arms to draw back and if he went with nothing to take advantage of the maidens, then you have two committees on your hands, one here and there and that is what a lot of this was all about. When the europeans came down of course they didnt understand us at all and they seem to have forgotten about the inquisition and the coliseum, and they were civilized. They started trading guns with the other indians and they began hunting the sioux and were still using prehistoric tools. They joke into the swamps of minnesota and finally, the territory cancer compromised that they had a choice, and ask essential choice. They either would die or they would have to step out onto the road. They ended up stepping out. Even on the prairie, there was still even though they kept up their egos, we dont think of the tribes as man down. One described the sioux as begging for handouts. That all changed again. When the english started coming down, first the Minnesota River and then to Missouri River in establishing the trade fairs. Now they were on the edge of the territory, and they were the ones on the first tribes to get within and guns and to get a shot and to give ammunition that they would break into arrowhea arrowheads. Sooner or later they took their event she on the smaller tribes that had been picking them apart and then something happened that changed the course of western history. It wasnt endemic to the western hemisphere and there have been prehistoric times there it was about the size of a big dog. Some of them had toes but they died out. When they brought the mustang into mexico it was a match made in heaven. Unlike the Northern European horses these mustangs had started out on the Central Asian steps and have followed the trade routes through the mideast for Northern Africa with the desert courses and when they invaded spain they came over and they were right on home in the planes. They could run forever, they could eat bark and once again when the spanish brought into the new world, they were right at home in the new world. What happened is the spanish as they conquered and converted it into what is now the United States they made deals with them. You worship our god we dont understand and we are basically going to end sleep you. In exchange, we have forces and we are going to protect you from your ageold enemy. Well, they got horses into the apache would ride a horse until it died so they didnt know how to breed but they gave them room to further operate and they started rating. You are making us worship some christian god that we know nothing about and youre into video was to protect us from the apaches into cant even do that now. So they chose the spanish back into old mexico and the spanish ran so fast they left everything behind. So they ate the cattle, but they were not a horse tribe and they just let the horses go and this was the beginning of the fourth expansion in the Northern Hemisphere in the United States. And so the horse made its way around north. They were the first on the planes. But they made rudimentary saddles. They were then player on the summer moon which is a tremendous book. Tom and i argued about who were better for us than. I think if you go pla by the territory a loan you have to go with the sioux. But the horses made their way north and all the way up into canada and of course the cheyenne and the sioux, they all required courses. The sioux took to the horse naturally, and much like the early apache, now they could spread out more. They conquered with remnants of the smaller tribes and then they took on the big boys and they pushed the pony out. They pushed it out of the black hills. They pushed to the crows out of the powder River Country and up into the rockies. Thethey controlled basically pas of minnesota tpartof minnesota e Great Salt Lakes and down to lower colorado. It was an empire. But they were still seven nations, seven tribes. Crazy horse, red cloud himself, so these seven tribes were further scattered into the clans and they all spoke the same language and they all had the same culture, but they were not united and they wouldnt fight each other but they were not enemies. They were not friendly towards each other. They were just waiting for someone if someone were to come along and unite them 71821, the banks of the creek in what is now the panhandle of nebraska, two nights before a meteor had shot through the sky left a giant red swath of clouds across the sky and in 1821 by the banks a baby was born and his father named him red cloud and red cloud was the man who would eventually unite these people. Tom will tell you about that. As bob just said it, red cloud was born in may of 1821. And he there were so many stories we have heard of in history of people, men and women that had a very difficult childhoods and have to rise above them and their resiliency and the strength they gain from their experiences made them into leaders, made them tougher than some of their rifles and that was certainly red clouds situation he was born in 1821, his mother he had a younger brother, little spider eventually. When red cloud was only 8yearsold his father died in d his father didnt die, you know, a war accident or anything, he died of alcoholism. As we are talking about the mid1820s and here is a sioux man biting debacle is him coming and when the traders, some of the explorers, but some of the early migrants and the people working their way west, there were three powerful diseases that they brought with them, smallpox, cholera and alcohol and the indians didnt have any immunity to any of these diseases. They were falling by the hundreds and red cloud had to go up without a father. An advantage that he had is his mother went back to her van that was run by old smoke who she called brother. Now, we dont know where they biologically brothers or was that just a relationship they had, brother and a sister but it indicates old smoke took in this woman and her fatherless children. Red cloud wasnt getting anything. He didnt have a father who was going to bring him up the ladder so to speak like crazy horse or sitting bull would have, so he had to learn everything. He had to become the best writer and hunter and eventually the best warrior, and over time even when he was a teenager, there is a section in the book where we talk about he went into the first battle when he was 16yearsold and there was a great excitement in the village as the party was being put together because for the first time he was putting on the war warpaint and getting ready for the battle and people in the village were saying red cloud is coming and he made his way onto his horse to join the party so at an early age, he showed quality and talent that were superior to most of the people in his tribe. In the 1830s and 1840s, he became he rose up the ranks and became a leader and a great warrior. Being a warrior was very important because we sort of liklike india to what was goingn in the great plains of the time it was sort of like warfare. The tribes, the crow, they were almost always at war with each other, and it wasnt just like okay we want to defeat you and conquer you, it was well we wanted this Hunting Ground. Okay we know that it belongs to you but not for long. Look out, here we come. So he is stealing horses and land and if you have the best Hunting Ground, your tribe had a better chance of survival because they were going to be more buffalo and more antelope, and one of the things red cloud displayed not only great courage and strength and all kinds of abilities, he demonstrated a great intelligence and empathy. When he came back from a successful hunting raid for example he didnt just keep everything for himself, he made sure that the elders got some of what he brought back. He made sure the families were not struggling to take care of themselves and that is some of the bounty that he brought back. He made sure the people in power at the tribe all spoke and the other elders were taken care of, and in this way he also started to gain the kind of respect he might not have otherwise have gone from being a fatherless person. So into the 1850s, he began to be viewed by them as not chief and i think that is important and one of the more interesting things that we found out in researching this book and im glad bob brought this up about the Research Process because that was fascinating to be taking these trips. It was sort of being on the trail, fly into omaha and getting in the car and spending to knows how much time you need to drive 2,000 or 3,000 miles to the dakotas and wyoming and nebraska where red cloud was born in nebraska and how he ended up in other states going to these Research Facilities i think probably my favorite was the one in wyoming and im not sure how familiar anyone is with northeast wyoming but its a small library. Its a small county Public Library yet it has this amazing History Collection of original documents. The diaries and journals that these wagon masters wives were keeping. But that was just to go on his trail and to sort of visit as he worked his way up the ranks and getting into the 1850s he wasnt seen as the chief. There was no chief. We are used to somebody that is an authority in the native american circles being a chief, but that was actually a white man and mentioned. Some of this we detailed in the book, for example when the army would be accompanied by officials from washington there might be certain territories that we wanted so we would propose okay here is a treaty that we are drawing up and it says you are going to give us this, this candidacy and we will give you this, this and this. The indians didnt have that concept that they owned with these officials coveted so they thought the whole thing was kind of curious to begin with and the other thing was they had no central figure that spoke for everybody, and the white officials have to have somebody on the document saying we are going to give you this 300,000 square miles. Basically they would designate somebody and say yeah, you coming you are the chief. Youre in charge. Me . Would like to do . You have to touch the pen. What that meanwhat advantage the whose document would be written and there would be a clerk with a fountain pen or feather pen, whatever. And of course a chief they chieu know, spotted tail wasnt going to just walk up and sit down and write down spotted tail signed on the dotted line said they would such depend which meant that they agreed to come and then the clerk would write the name and suddenly the treaty was valid. Suddenly the transfer of ownership had taken place. Red cloud wasnt a chief, that he became the most powerful warrior in the head of the society, and he was observing what was going on, even though the tribes spent most of their time fighting each other they couldnt help noticing that there were more and more white people showing up. Fort lair and he was probably the most prominent in that part in missouri, west of missouri, and it would be a way station as people coming from the east would stop and pick up more people come and drop off some people, get supplies to change horses or whatever and then they would go on. But the oregon trail was about. They would be going to oregon or other places. Certainly when gold was discovered in california it accelerated off to the west going through, and red cloud could see that increase in population of people coming across the territory and was doing several things. One was they were taking a big share of the buffalo come of the more buffalo that was shot and killed madness for the indian. He also saw that they were kind of polluting the area, too. They would eat part of a buffalo and they would use every part of the buffalo, the indians. The white immigrants would use part of it and whatever was left, a horse die died and they would leave the carcass right on the trail and it would rot. Also red cloud anticipated that they were going to want to go through and perhaps even occupy the black hills. For those that wonder and dont know the title of the book, the heart of everything that is another name for the black hills, and translated is the heart of everything that is. It was the heart of their existence. Thats where they eat the leave their ancestors came from an anp is the sacred land to them and it certainly couldnt be giving away. It couldnt simply just be occupied and taken advantage of by the w