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Dammed Indians by Michael Lawson is a book about the construction of man made reservoirs on the Missouri River. The book emphasizes the importance of the Pick-Sloan Plan, which created the dams along the river and flooded numerous acres American Indian land. The Pick Sloan Plan, which first started as two separate plans; they combined after a stalemate. One plan created by General Lewis A. Pick, whose plan was to create a series of large dams along the Missouri River and have those controlled by office of The Army Corp of Engineers. The other plan was created by William Glenn Sloan, his idea was to dam and navigate the head waters of all the tributaries of the Missouri River. After the two plans were combined and modified, it was passed by congress as the Flood Control Act of 1944. Lawson makes it a point to show that Native Americans were not fully informed or questioned at all during this time.
The dams that were created on the Upper Missouri River cause a lot of heartache and controversy with American Indian tribes, who were living along the river. Garrison Dam was the first of these mega dams created on the Missouri River. The dam flooded the interior of The Fort Berthold Reservation. Thus, it caused the town of Elbowoods (their tribal headquarters) to be completely submerged by the Missouri River. Fort Berthold fought long and hard to prevent the construction of Garrison Dam, but they had ultimately failed. The town of Elbowoods became entirely submerged, moving all to a newly created town called New Town, North Dakota. To emphasize the impact that flooding had on Indian people, during the bill signing that gave the government authority to flood their land, the chairman of the tribe could not hold his emotions back and wept (shown in picture.) The controversy that happened on Fort Berthold was a reoccurring theme that followed when construction started on the Big Bend Dam, Gavins Point Dam, and Oahe Dam in South Dakota. All these dams created large reservoirs that flooded Indian lands along the Missouri river. Some of the worst outcomes of this project were that lands that used to be owned by Indians were now controlled by the Army Corp of Engineers and Indians had limitations to their rights for water. In addition, most tribes were not fairly paid for their land.

Lawson did a good job writing Dammed Indians; he uses a lot of governmental documents and interviews with Indians who were against the dam. His intention in creating this book was to show the ramifications that The Pick-Sloan Plan had on Indians, who lived along the Missouri River. He wanted to present all the data that showed how these dams destroyed Indian land, economies, and cultures.