Crazy Horse takes place between 1844 and 1877 and includes such historical events as the 1849 gold rush, a major cause for the Sioux uprising; the 1854 Grattan Massacre; the inauguration of the Pony Express; the Civil War; the battles over the Bozeman Trail; the Custer Massacre; Crazy Horse's murder; and the Nez Perce war in 1877. Generally, the novel's setting is the American Great Plains, and the Sioux nation spreads from northern Nebraska into western Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains and north into the Black Hills and badlands of South Dakota. In a universal and symbolic sense, the setting is the American West, and the defeat of the Sioux and Crazy Horse's murde r forebode the fate of the Nez Perce in 1877 and Geronimo and the Apaches in 1886. Ironically, General George Custer's last stand also became the Sioux's last stand, for after defeating Custer, they split into separate bands and thus were easily...