With My Own Eyes tells the history of the nineteenth-century Lakotas. Susan Bordeaux Bettelyoun (1857–1945), the daughter of a French-American fur trader and a Brulé Lakota woman, was raised near Fort Laramie and experienced firsthand the often devastating changes forced on the Lakotas. As Bettelyoun grew older, she became increasingly dissatisfied with the way her people’s history was being represented by non-Natives. With My Own Eyes represents her attempt to correct misconceptions about Lakota history. Bettelyoun’s narrative was recorded during the 1930s by another Lakota historian, Josephine Waggoner. This detailed, insightful account of Lakota history was never previously published.
