Black Elk's story is also a political story of conquest and dispossession that raises questions about ethics and the use of power and provides an alternative view of the American experience. It challenged the conventional version of American history prevalent at the time of its publication in 1932 that heroized western expansion and glorified the profit-making motive as the doctrine of manifest destiny. Black Elk complicates the cultural relativism of the American historical narrative by observing, for example, that yellow metal (gold) made the white men go crazy; or that the Indians were forced into square houses that lacked the power of the circle; or that treaties were violated in the U.S. Government's seizure of Indian territory. Black Elk Speaks depicts the great cost, in human and environmental terms, of such events as the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the settlement of the west, and the discovery of gold. It implicitly questions the military strategy of quelling hostile forces, by contrasting the true genocidal nature of that mission with the general sentiment among the Indians that they simply wanted to live on the land they had always lived on.
Finally and importantly, Black Elk Speaks is a sacred text. Black Elk's account of his visionary experiences is comparable to John's account in the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible or the Khabbala in the Jewish tradition.
