Historian Christopher Rein examines religious violence and “Manifest Destiny” as causal factors of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in the summer issue of Great Plains Quarterly.
Rein, associate professor of history at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, argues that religious Army officers leading Colorado soldiers saw the extermination of American Indians was an important way of fulfilling their “Manifest Destiny.”
Other articles in the issue (volume 34, no. 3) include:
Geologist and UNL professor R.M. Joeckel’s invited essay on the Pawnee Buttes of the High Plains — which inspired him after he took an unplanned detour through northeastern Colorado.
Kelsey Squire’s article on how Willa Cather’s experiences as a college student at the University of Nebraska influenced her fiction and other works — leading her to be a staunch supporter of higher education in the West.
Rachel M. Sailor’s piece on photographing 19th century Native Americans and the popularity of collecting such portraits. The photos not only show superficial information about Native Americans of the time, but also tell observers something about the owners of the albums.
A review essay, “Exploring Meriwether Lewis,” and several book reviews covering the latest Great Plains works covering the following topics: the letters of Willa Cather; Saskatchewan during the 1930s; Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas; the northern Plains; powwow music; the Battle of Greasy Grass/Little Bighorn in popular culture; the problems of racism and sexism in American rodeo; indigenous art responses to colonization; the Fort Peck Reservation; and the use of peyote in the Native American Church.
Great Plains Quarterly is an interdisciplinary academic journal published by the Center for Great Plains Studies at UNL through the University of Nebraska Press. It is available through the NU Press, and online via participating university libraries and Project MUSE. For more information, click here.
