In August 1862 the Sioux of Minnesota rose up against their white neighbours in the bloodiest massacre in the history of the West, with four times the fatalities of the Battle of Little Big Horn. They had been viewed by white settlers as a friendly tribe, but in reality they were deeply resentful over the loss of lands, the disappearance of the buffalo, broken treaties, the government's delayed annuity payments, and the refusal of traders to release food to starving Indians. During their week-long rampage the Sioux killed some 800 settlers, took scores of women and children captive, sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing eastward, and marked the outbreak of a series of wars between whites and Indians over the Great Plains that did not end until nearly thirty years later at a place called Wounded Knee. This book is a gripping but evenhanded reconstruction of the lives and deaths of settlers, Indians, traders, agents, and soldiers as they unknowingly created an epic chapter of frontier history.