Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980 [Paperback]

Mike Lawson (Author), Vine, Jr. Deloria (Foreword)

Product Details

• Paperback: 261 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806126728
• ISBN-13: 978-0806126722
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,390,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael L. Lawson is a partner in Morgan, Angel & Associates, L.L.C., an historical and public policy consulting firm in Washington, D.C. During a 20-year career in the federal government, he served as an historian for the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Lawson earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a doctorate in American history at The University of New Mexico. He is a three-time recipient of the South Dakota State Historical Society's Governor's Awards for History and has also been honored by the Western History Association and the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society for his writing on Native American topics. Lawson has been a visiting lecturer at several colleges, including New York University, the U.S. Naval Academy, and George Washington University.

Lawson's classic work, Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1982, 1994), provided the factual basis for Congressional legislation establishing tribal recovery trust funds totaling $385.8 million for five Sioux tribes in compensation for reservation infrastructure lost to Federal dam projects. What began as a purely academic exercise for Lawson in the 1970s, to meet the requirements of writing a thesis and dissertation, eventually found a real world application between 1996 and 2002 that has significantly benefited the Sioux people. The accrued income from the tribal recovery trust funds will eventually total billions of dollars. Lawson has recently updated his original work with six new chapters, including two that describe the process by which the tribes were able to gain recovery trust funds from Congress. Entitled Dammed Indians Revisited: The Continuing History of the Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, this revised edition was recently released by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press. This book includes a new foreword by Senator George McGovern in addition to the original foreword by the late Sioux scholar Vine Deloria, Jr.

The South Dakota Center for the Book and the South Dakota Humanities Council have named Dammed Indians Revisited as the 2012 One Book South Dakota selection. The One Book South Dakota program encourages everyone across South Dakota to read and discuss the same book throughout the course of a year. Community and book groups can invite a scholar from a Humanities Council list to facilitate their discussions. The program culminates in a presentation given by the author of the book at the South Dakota Festival of Books in October. Last year over 8,000 readers participated in the program and Council provided more than 3,000 copies of the 2011 selection to Native American students. The SDSHS Press will issue a special edition of the book for this program.

Dammed Indians Revisited received a 2011 Independent Publishers Silver Medal Award ("IPPY") in the category of "Best Regional Nonfiction."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing short of first-rate, August 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980 (Paperback)

For anyone interested in the background, impact, and future of the Pick-Sloan Plan, you need look no further than Lawson's aptly titled "Dammed Indians". The tribes from Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, SD to Ft. Peck Dam in Montana have all been adversely affected with the damming of the Missouri River, a truth which Lawson documents with precision and skill. Originally a Ph.D. dissertation written in the history department at the University of New Mexico, Lawson is a fine example of some of the many outstanding American West historians who have come out of that institution.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent research., September 17, 2009

By 

M. Ashley (Pierre, South Dakota, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980 (Hardcover)

This book was a gift for my father. When he was released from the Army Air Corp and returned to the Crow Creek Reservation, he was elected Tribal Chairman. The Pick-Sloan Plan was his first challenge. He testified before congress and stood up for Crow Creek with very little support from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He says that this book tells it like it was and it should be read.