2012 Edition

A Thrilling Narrative of Indian Captivity: Dispatches from the Dakota War

by Mary Butler Renville

edited by Carrie Reber Zeman and Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola

foreword by Gwen N. Westerman

Dakota translations by Glenn Wasicuna and Gwen Westerman

Cover Art: “They Always Prefer the Old Ways” by Merlin Little Thunder

Maps by Philip Schwartzberg

University of Nebraska Press June 1, 2012

Mary Butler Renville (1830-1895) and her husband John Baptiste Renville (1831-1903) dedicated their lives to education and mission work among the Dakotas. Carrie Reber Zeman is an independent historian specializing in the context and historiography of the U.S. Dakota War of 1862. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola is a professor of English at the University of Arkansas Little Rock and the author of The War in Words: Reading the the Dakota War Through the Captivity Literature (University of Nebraska, 2009). Dakota scholar Gwen N. Westerman is a professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato, the director of the Native American Literature Symposium, and co-author with Bruce M. White of Mni Sota Makoce, forthcoming from the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

The maps in the book were drawn for the Pond Dakota Heritage Society, Bloomington, MN by Philip Schwartzberg of Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis Minnesota using a Legacy Grant from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund established by the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008, administered by the Minnesota Historical Society. The authors and the University of Nebraska Press gratefully acknowledge the Pond Dakota Heritage Society for permission to reproduce the maps in A Thrilling Narrative of Indian Captivity.