Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

The Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize was created to emphasize the interdisciplinary importance of the Great Plains in today’s publishing and educational market. Only first edition, full-length, nonfiction books are evaluated for the award. The author of the winning title will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a medallion.

The Center for Great Plains Studies is pleased to announce the winner for the Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize for a book published in 2012:

WINNER: "Blackfoot Redemption: A Blood Indian's Story of Murder, Confinement, and Imperfect Justice"

In “Blackfoot Redemption” William E. Farr reconstructs the events of a Canadian Blackfoot called Spopee who shot and killed a white man in 1879. Through the narrative, he reveals a larger story about race and prejudice as the transition to reservations began. Farr is a Senior Fellow at the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West and Professor Emeritus at the University of Montana, Missoula. He is the author of “Montana: Images of the Past and The Reservation Blackfeet, 1882-1945,” among others. Read the press release. "Blackfoot Redemption" was published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Finalist

Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs and U.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854-1868

In “Terrible Justice” Doreen Chaky gives one of the first complete accounts of Sioux conflict before 1870. Chaky examines the 1850s and 1860s, the period between the first major conflicts between the Sioux and U.S. soldiers and the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation. The book also looks at the relationships between different bands of Sioux and how they were affected by conflict. Chaky is a freelance journalist and independent scholar. She resides in Williston, North Dakota.