Image Description: Front cover of Prairie Man shows historical portrait-style images of Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin.

About Prairie Man: The story of the men behind the fight over the hearts and minds of the Lakota. One week after the June 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn, when news of the defeat of Custer and his 7th Cavalry troops reached the American public, Lakota Chief Sitting Bull became the most wanted hostile Indian in America. Now recognized as an American hero, Sitting Bull was vilified during his life. He had resisted intrusions into Lakota land for years, refused to sign treaties, and called for a gathering of tribes at Little Big Horn. He epitomized resistance. But there are other battles than those of war, and the conflict between Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin was one of those battles.

Praise for Prairie Man:

"A forceful chronicle of a Lakota chief's resistance to intrigue, failed promises, and forced assimilation from 1851 to 1891. The author underscores the conflicting dynamics of Native culture and United States government policies at play in the relocation of the Plains Indians to reservation life. Here is the hard charge of manifest destiny and the first peoples' prairie lost." - Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Northern Cheyenne

About the Author: Norman Matteoni is a longtime student of the American West and the life and times of Sitting Bull. Both a legal scholar and practicing lawyer, he has written extensively in law review articles, appellate briefs, and a two-volume treatise on the Law of Eminent Domain in California. He also is an amateur photographer, and in 2008 he photographed areas of the northern plains, home of the Lakota.