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Comment by icefrakker | Hacker News Reader

"It’s a staggering success while it lasts; by the late 1860s, the average family owns upwards of twenty horses. The empire these nomads build is rapacious; more than once, the Lakota are forced to move westward because they have looted the neighboring tribes out of existence and are therefore out of farmed food. Over several more generations, the Lakota shift fitfully west, until a series of visions reveals the Black Hills as their final home."

Funny but I have never seen genocide committed by white folk called a staggering success. If a white person said God gave white people Utah until the end of time we would think they are nuts, why is it any different when a native says the same?

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Well you removed the context...

> Over the course of the eighteenth century, the Lakota become a horse people. It takes generations, a huge expenditure of wealth, and day-long rides clinging onto wild and bucking horses until they break, but they do it, earlier than other tribes.

> [...]

> Hämäläinen brilliantly documents the transition from a largely hunter-gatherer-farmer society, settled in Mississippi River valleys, into a fully nomadic one. It’s a staggering success while it lasts; by the late 1860s, the average family owns upwards of twenty horses.

The transition to horse people and to a nomadic life is considered successful.

Why do they have to move all the time and be nomadic?

Why not? They weren't farmers like most of continental society was at the time.

Seems like their nomadic lifestyle went hand in hand with raiding and looting.

"Hämäläinen brilliantly documents the transition from a largely hunter-gatherer-farmer society, settled in Mississippi River valleys, into a fully nomadic one. It’s a staggering success while it lasts; by the late 1860s, the average family owns upwards of twenty horses."

By omitting the preceding sentence you have allowed yourself to be misled about what the context is. The "staggering success" being referred to here is the transition of their society to a nomadic way of life, as facilitated by the introduction of horses.

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