Killing Custer Reflection

I found Killing Custer to be an interesting read, but I believe the author made a few mistakes that took away from his point. First, the author's writing style is scattered and jumps between the past and the present with little warning or explanation. Also, his chapters seem fairly arbitrary, and from the chapters we were assigned, it was difficult to get a grasp on a particular direction in which the book was going. Professor Haas mentioned that this was purposeful--that readers were supposed to be disoriented upon reading this book. However, I believe that if the author had more carefully organized the information in a more chronological and structured way, he would have been able to make a more powerful point and eliminated some of the readers' distraction.

Second, in chapter six Welch addresses some of the more heinous acts attributed to Indians, and states that during times of war, actions such as these almost become acceptable, given the environment and the things at stake. He compares these acts to gruesome acts in history, pointing out that Indians were not the only people susceptible to them. But, if he uses this argument to defend Indians' actions, then I believe he must apply that to the actions of the whites as well. Thus, things like killing the women and children would be more acceptible considering moral distinctions were blurred in the fighting. While this does not absolve whites of the responsibility for creating the fighting in the first place (nor do I actually think it is appropriate to employ this logic in either case), it is an example of his bias. That bias, however, is usually intentional and with purpose, as Welch believes that most, if not all, of history is written from a while male perspective.

Overall I really enjoyed the book. I had actually not had much exposure to the Custer myth prior to this, but I found the degree to which we have reimagined our own history fascinating. Welch did a very thorough job of exposing who Custer really was, and examining why we have made him what he "is" today.