When Indians Became Cowboys

Book excerpt: Focusing on the northern plains and the Southwest, Iverson traces the rise and fall of individual and tribal cattle industries against the backdrop of changing federal Indian policies. He describes the Indian Bureau's inability to recognize that most nineteenth-century reservations were better suited to ranching than farming. Even though allotment and leasing stifled ranching, livestock became symbols and ranching a new means of resisting, adapting, and living - for remaining Native.