Summary of Heather Cox Richardson's Wounded Knee

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Shermans were a new type of American, who had helped create a worldview based on aggressive economic development. They had fought for it against Southern slaveholders, and they had pushed it into western lands. But their worldview clashed with the traditional culture of the Plains Indians. #2 The Sherman brothers were both ambitious and successful. They invested in manufacturing and railroads, and supported the Whig politicians who called for government protection of domestic industries. But they were heading not for uneventful success, but for a cataclysm. #3 The Mexican-American War, which was fought from 1846 to 1848, unsettled the Shermans. They were eager to try out the power of their young nation and their own maturity, but the war threatened to hand national power to slave owners, which would upset the balance of power in the nation. #4 The Compromise of 1850 was a solution to the crisis in California, which was quickly becoming a free state, and the other new territories, which were being dominated by Southerners. The compromise offered Southerners the two huge Territories of New Mexico and Utah, which eventually became the five states of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.