Thieves' Road: The Black Hills Betrayal and Custer's Path to Little Bighorn by Terry Mort

Thieves' Road: The Black Hills Betrayal and Custer's Path to Little Bighorn Reviews

• 
  Eric Ruark

  If you are fascinated by the Custer legend... if you have a collection of books about Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, et al... If you are a fan of the Gilded Age... You HAVE to add this book to your collection. I have never read a book that so clearly draws a picture of the men, the time period, the attitudes of both the white men and the Native Americans as Thieves' Road.
  
  This book is about the domino effect of the events that let up to Custer's last stand. It clearly defines the problems such as the national debt incurred by the Civil War, the government's need for gold, the politics, the misplaced philanthropy and the rampant corruption of the government that sent Custer into the Sioux territory on three different occasions: the Northern Pacific Railroad survey in 1873, the Black Hills reconnaissance in force in 1874 and finally to the banks of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Terry Mort's vivid descriptions of the personalities, the places, the politics and the corruption brings to life a clash of diametrically opposed cultures with totally different values.
  
  For students of Native American history, there is an excellent chapter, The Adversaries, in which author Terry Mort details the belief system of the Sioux and explains why the eastern philanthropic philosophy was doomed to failure.
  
  The story has the "inevitability of a tragedy" with more than enough cruelty on both sides to go around. When it was over, Custer and 262 of his men were dead and the Lakota way of life was dying. It was a tragedy played out on a grand scale over decades of time with a cast of some of the most flamboyant characters ever to play across the stage of history. This is a GREAT read.
  
  Reviewed by Eric Ruark, author of MURDER BEYOND THE MILKY WAY
• 
  Tim

  Terry Mort puts forth a great book telling of a truly painful and shameful period of America's westward expansion. In doing so, he brings to surface attitudes and economic factors, both occurring in the US as well as in Europe, which helped set the stage. He shows how personal, as well as collective decisions as a nation, were based on greed, intolerance and outright lies to the indigenous peoples who "were in the way" and that nothing was going to stop our nation's progressive march across the continent. While the deck was ultimately stacked against them, the Sioux were not entirely blameless, although their culture and belief system really left them no alternatives in the choices they made. The Sioux well understood the practice of ownership by conquest, and practiced that art as well as anyone. I really don't know how it could have ended any other way. While the time frames and names of the players might have changed; in the end, the so-called needs of the people (greed); as well as desires and proclamations of the political leadership in the name of progress (greed); the end result would have been the same.
  
  There are many lessons to be learned from US history that help to define us. Lessons in humanity, how to be good stewardship of the earth, and wastefulness of war. We haven't learned yet; I doubt that we will any time soon.
• 
  Kenneth Barber

  This book tells the story of the expedition into the Black Hills in 1874. At the time the area belonged to the Sioux Indians as a result of the Treaty of 1868 which ended the Red Cloud War. The expedition was ostensibly to look for a place to build a fort to help stop Indian depredations against white settlements and the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The author does much more than describe the exploration of the Black Hills. He puts the attempt to take the area from the Sioux into the context of events in the world as well as the United States. The movement to build trans-continental railroads, the Panic of 1873, and the rumors of gold in the area are all woven into the story. The author also does a god job of describing Indian culture and the conflict with the white culture. The book also draws parallels to what happened to Custer two years later at Little Bighorn.
• 
  Karen

  This is so much more than a story about Custer or the Indian Wars. It explained how the Civil War affected the nation's later development, how Gilded Age investors maneuvered a cash hungry government into helping them build the transcontinental railroad, and how that created scores of tiny towns along railroad tracks across the West. This book ties up many loose threads for those of us who want the rest of the story.
• 
  Don Watkins

  Well written and engaging. Full of historical information.
• 
  Chuck Thomas

  Concise narrative of Custer's Black Hills expedition....
  
  I recently took a family vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. Found this book on Amazon and was quite pleased with it. Presents a concise, focused history of why the U.S. sought to explore the Black Hills, the challenges facing the expedition, the Lakota Sioux's own claims and beliefs regarding the Hills, and the subsequent results of what occurred in the region after Custer's expedition. Well researched account.
• 
  Fredrick Danysh

  Two years before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, America was in an economic recession as was the rest of the world. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was sent in 1874 was sent into the Black Hills for the stated purpose of selecting sites for forts to protect travels transecting Sioux territory but also to evaluate mineral resources in the region. Thieves' Road explores the political and economic forces driving the expedition that would ultimately lead to the deaths of over 250 men of the 7th Cavalry in 1876 as Custer chased glory. This is a good read of the exploitation of Native Americans by the US.
• 
  Tom

  I have read a lot about G.A. Custer, but this book with its focus on the Black Hills Expedition gives a different insight into the boy general. He seems as impetuous as two years later when his ego gets the Seventh Cavalry wiped out.
• 
  Sandi

  A very interesting account of the time before the Black Hills Expedition and the eventual path to the a little Big Horn good book