Manhart’s scholarly work in linguistics helped preserve and disseminate the living, native North American Lakota language.
In 1952 while still in Jesuit formation, Manhart was assigned to teach at Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
Buechel's collected Lakota terms were accompanied by their English definitions, pronunciations, parts of speech, examples of usage, and their sources.
Manhart had borrowed Buechel's original manuscript of Lakota Tales and Texts from the Holy Rosary Mission archives with the intention to publish.
As a result of the violent occupation, he and two local men, Benjamin White Butterfly and Ruben Mesteth found their office in shambles and the library shelves stripped of all its books—except the Tales and Texts manuscript.
Manhart in 2002 completed his revision of the Lakota Dictionary[4] to include English translations of the term usages, a second edition published by the University of Nebraska Press.
[5] Grievances lingered until just four months later when the Wounded Knee incident began 27 February 1973, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, when approximately 200 Sioux Native Americans, in a military-style operation organized by Dennis Banks, Carter Camp, Clyde Bellecourt, Russell Means and members of the American Indian Movement, confronted Fr.
[6] The takeover was described by an observer from the press as, “a commando raid in the most accurate sense: well organized, lightning fast, and executed in almost total darkness” (Rapid City Journal, March 1, 1973, p. 1)[7] The Wounded Knee occupation by AIM lasted 71 days during which two Indian activists were killed—one struck in the head by a bullet that also pierced the wall of the Catholic church.
[8] The psychological stress of these events required evacuation to Rushville Hospital unconscious hostage Wilber Riegert (87 years of age), at which Fr.
Manhart chose to remain in an effort to serve as a, “buffer between the AIM and government forces and that meaningful negotiations might result.” [10] During Means’ federal trial, The Denver Post reported, “The priest heard the front door unlocked from the inside.
Take him to the basement and tie him up.” Thousands of rounds of ammunition were exchanged between AIM members and the FBI from their positions outside the church.
On 16 September 1973, After an eight-and-a-half-month trial the U.S. District Court of South Dakota (Fred Joseph Nichol presiding judge) dismissed the charges against Banks and Means for conspiracy and assault because of the U.S. government’s unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence.
Manhart returned to Holy Rosary Mission to resume his pastoral duties and continue work on the revised edition of the Lakota Dictionary, published in 2002.