Lakota communities in 1890 were experiencing real hunger, real dispossession, and real reason for despair.

The Ghost Dance offered a spiritual framework for that despair and a promise of transformation.

Its spread was rapid and, from the perspective of people living under those conditions, entirely comprehensible.

Reservation agents and military commanders did not approach the Ghost Dance with comprehension.

They approached it with alarm and, in some cases, with panic.

The movement’s rapid spread through multiple reservation communities, the fervent commitment of its practitioners, and the interpretations that gave it a political edge were read by these officials as the signs of an imminent uprising.

That reading was wrong.