Peter Matthiessen (1) (1927–2014)

The story is told as a drawn-out series of accounts of the famous shoot-out at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975, but also concerning many other related events and combined with extracts of court transcripts and of the author’s interviews. Ultimately it’s never clear why FBI agents were at the shoot-out site initially, who shot whom when, and exactly what Leonard Peltier had to do with it. Most or all prosecutorial, FBI, and presented “witness” accounts seem unreliable, and there is now knowledge of either fabricated ballistic evidence or information that was withheld about ballistic evidence. The author was clearly personally involved in this, his sympathies are immediately and everywhere clear. He brings the story to us in a protracted repetitive fashion, but the main disappointment for the reader is that almost everything is left in the air, and although it seems clear that Peltier was picked by the FBI to take the fall and then received a sham trial, it is also clear that two FBI agents were murdered (it's not self-defense when you shoot a wounded man in the head), and that Peltier is a serial felon from adolescence. An account related to the author from an unnamed and disguised Indian "X" confessing to the murders given near the end of the book didn't seem to be a more reliable account than any other.
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I have had some interest in lying in the past, and I noticed that many of the stories told on both sides are of a type commonly used when lying (see the current liar-in-chief or, especially, Mr. Putin). If I ask you if you did something, a common truthful response might be "no", but a common untruthful response is, "Why would a person like me do something like that?".… (mere)

Edgar (E.J.) Watson was a historic person born in 1855 who lived through the horrible Florida hurricane of 1910. He was a hero to some and a villain to others. Matthiessen takes snippets of history and an assortment of folks who supposedly knew the story of Watson to give readers all the possibilities. The eyewitnesses disagree about the circumstances surrounding Watson's life and death in southwestern Florida. However, we learn much more about the thinking of the time and the Florida land before it is developed. The area and people are portrayed as wild and primitive. So many disregard nature by attempting to conquer and control it. The author includes descriptions of inaccurate weather forecasting, surviving and succumbing to hurricanes, and their aftereffects. In general, many humans were misguided in thinking they could destroy humans, animals, vegetation, and whatever was in the way without consequence.

Some of the places depicted include:
Ten Thousand Islands
Everglades
Okeechobee
Chokoloskee
Possum Key
Monroe County
Lee County

Some of the distinguishing characteristics, traits, features, or hallmarks of "old Florida" include:
Counties and governorship
Deputies
Sheriffs
Crackers, Baptist Crackers
Draining Okeechobee
The Calusa: "The Shell Indians" shell mounds
Calusa mounds
Natives, Blacks, Biracial people
Chain gangs
Posses
Wild bird eggs
Reconstruction
Seminole Wars
Harvesting skins
Plume wars
See my reviews at https://quipsandquotes.net/… (mere)