The Ghost Dance and the Road to Wounded Knee: 1876-1890
By Daniel R. Whitlock
Length4h 50m
About this audiobook
On June 26, 1876, the morning after the Greasy Grass, the women were still cutting up the dead horses while the great Lakota and Cheyenne camp broke apart around them, family by family, travois by travois. Custer's five companies lay on the ridge. The victory had been total. It changed nothing about the coming winter, and Sitting Bull knew it: the soldiers would return, and this time they would come for the buffalo, the horses and the meat that made fighting possible.
They did. Nelson Miles and George Crook waged a winter war on the ledger as much as the field, burning grass and taking herds until the hunting ground stood empty. Surrender, exile and the ration lists followed, and the land guaranteed by the treaty of 1868 was taken piece by piece. Years later, in Nevada's Mason Valley, a Paiute holy man named Wovoka had a vision of the world made new, and in a year of hunger his dance reached the Lakota reservations.
Frightened agents called it an uprising. On December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull was shot dead during his arrest at Standing Rock. Two weeks later, at Wounded Knee Creek, the Seventh Cavalry opened fire on Big Foot's band as it was being disarmed and killed as many as three hundred men, women and children. The book stays for what came after: the burial, the newspapers, and the long memory the Lakota have kept since.
The people who danced were praying for the dead to return and the buffalo with them. The men who sent the soldiers could not tell a prayer from a rebellion.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length4 hrs 50 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 18, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Road from the Greasy Grass
2Chapter 2: Exiles and the Ledger
3Chapter 3: A Prophet in the Mason Valley
4Chapter 4: The Treaty Ground of 1868
5Chapter 5: The Agents' War
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 6: The Dance Camps
7Chapter 7: The Seventh Rides Out
8Chapter 8: A Good Day to Die
9Chapter 9: The Winter Count Ends
10Chapter 10: The Newspaper and the Grave
11Chapter 11: The Long Memory
12Chapter 12: What the Grass Remembers
13About the Author
More from Daniel R. Whitlock
Blood and Oil: The Osage Reign of Terror, 1921-1931Daniel R. Whitlock4h 5m$6
The Tonquin's Wake: Astor's Fur Empire and the Nations of the Lower ColumbiaDaniel R. Whitlock3h 59m$6
The Dakota War of 1862Daniel R. Whitlock3h 31m$6
Mescalero Apache: Sierra Blanca and the Reservation WarsDaniel R. Whitlock4h 1m$6
Between the Mountains and the Plains: The Jicarilla Apache StoryDaniel R. Whitlock4h 13m$6
The Great Sioux War: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the Winter That Ended the PlainsDaniel R. Whitlock4h 3m$6
The Cheyenne Wars: Dog Soldiers, Roman Nose, and the Central PlainsDaniel R. Whitlock4h 52m$6
Smallpox on the Missouri: The Mandan, Hidatsa, and ArikaraDaniel R. Whitlock4h 13m$6
Comanche Rising: The Horse Lords of the Southern Plains, 1830-1875Daniel R. Whitlock5h 7m$6
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m4.6 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
You may also like
The Day the World Ended at Little BighornJoseph M. Marshall III8h 18m4.1 (1.4K)$20
The Greatest Indian Heroes and ChieftainsCharles A. Eastman OhiyeS'a5h 1m4.1 (605)$1.99 · $0.00
Geronimo's Story of His Life (Illustrated Edition) (Annotated)Geronimo5h 30m4.2 (5.4K)$0.99 · $0.00
The Earth Is All That LastsMark Lee Gardner12h 42m4.4 (943)$33 · $0.00
Geronimo's Story of His Life (Annotated)Geronimo5h 23m4.1 (8.2K)$2 · $0.00
Cursed VictoryAhron Bregman13h 15m4.4 (296)$23
Recollections of a Confederate Staff OfficerGilbert Moxley Sorrel9h 6m4.3 (436)$0.99 · $0.00
The History of the Jews (All Six Volumes) (Annotated)Heinrich Graetz118h 17m4.5 (370)$2 · $0.00
Recollections of a Confederate Staff OfficerG. Moxley Sorrel8h 37m4.3 (563)$0.99 · $0.00
Crear en peligroEdwidge Danticat5h 53m4.3 (4.7K)$12 · $0.00
History of the American Civil War (Annotated)James Ford Rhodes16h4.1 (875)$2 · $0.00
Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (Annotated)Charles A. Eastman OhiyeS'a5h 1m4.2 (574)$2 · $0.00
IsraelDaniel Gordis16h 19m4.4 (6.7K)$40 · $0.00
The Kiowa and the Southern Plains: Horse Trade, Sun Dance, and the Long Road to ReservationDaniel R. Whitfield4h 50m$6
Indian Wars under the Lead of Sitting Bull (Annotated)James P. Boyd7h 30m4.1 (17)$0.99 · $0.00
Red Stick Rising: The Creek War, Horseshoe Bend, and the Making of Andrew JacksonDaniel Whitcomb4h 1m4.8 (10)$6
THE LAST STANDWilliam Hartshorne Stone5h 31m$10 · $0.00
Indians, Cowboys, and Farmers and the Battle for the Great PlainsChristopher Collier, James Lincoln Collier2h 10m3.7 (93)$15
The Indian War of 1864: Events in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming (Annotated)Eugene Fitch Ware16h 42m$2 · $0.00
The AlamoJohn Myers Myers7h 13m3.6 (198)$17