The Factors contributing to Wounded Knee Massacre - Essay Example

Paper The Factors contributing to Wounded Knee Massacre In my opinion, relating the incident of massacre directly to the party politics is an oversimplification of the facts. The role of party politics may be contributory towards creating a set of factors, the ultimate outcome of which was the killing of this scale. As the author states the "west was particularly amenable to the juggling of appointments for political advantage because it had a long history of federal control" (169). However, ignoring all other factors and giving importance to the factor of politics only, appears to be creating a situation where the author is inclined towards blaming only one cause of the incident intentionally, while allowing other causative factors to benefit from the opportunity.

At another point the author maligns politicians by saying that "it was no secret that politicians stuffed the Indian agencies with political appointees who were, more often than not, corrupt and indifferent to the needs of their charges. Eventually, the abused Indians broke out and started killing local settlers, at which point the military men were called in to risk their lives to restore order" (205, 206). Here again, the role of Indians in killing local settlers is depicted as a reaction to a set of conditions developed by politicians.

In my opinion, such texts are purposely created under the influence of powerful forces to achieve hidden aims. Hidden aims may include the idea of taking benefit from a given situation to promote a new concept that is previously non-existent. It appears that there is a hidden agenda behind blaming party politics. In this case, the reason for this appears to be that the author wants the readers to stay focused only on one cause of the issue. By doing this, the other factors that contributed to the massacre, have been allowed to escape the vision of the readers.

Not only this, but the author also manages to create a feeling of hopelessness and fear among the readers, which is likely to keep the readers away from party politics. Overall, I am not convinced by the argument developed by the author and the notion that party politics provided the main impetus for the attack has many flaws in it. The argument could have been more justified if a balanced and unbiased analysis of the situation was carried out by the author. Works Cited Cox, Heather. Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre.

New York: Elsevier, 2010 Online.