Also.........this constant overlay with the Native Americans .............

he South Dakota years[edit]

In July 1888, Baum and his wife moved to Aberdeen, Dakota Territory where he opened a store called "Baum's Bazaar". His habit of giving out wares on credit led to the eventual bankrupting of the store,^[14] so Baum turned to editing the local newspaper The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer where he wrote the column Our Landlady.^[15] Following the death of Sitting Bull at the hands of a federal agent, Baum urged the wholesale extermination of all America's native peoples in a column that he wrote on December 20, 1890. On January 3, 1891 he returned to the subject in an editorial response to the Wounded Knee Massacre:^[16]

The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.^[17]

A recent analysis of these editorials has challenged their literal interpretation, suggesting that the actual intent of Baum was to generate sympathy for the Indians via obnoxious argument, ostensibly promoting the contrary position.^[18]

Baum's description of Kansas in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is based on his experiences in drought-ridden South Dakota. During much of this time, Matilda Joslyn Gage was living in the Baum household. While Baum was in South Dakota, he sang in a quartet which included James Kyle, who became one of the first Populist (People's Party) Senators in the U.S.^{[citation needed][19]}