Growing up, I enjoyed watching good western movies on Saturday night television. Some of these movies depicted an exciting time period when settlers in covered wagons travelled west to explore, live, and stake claims in new lands. Others depicted Native Americans as ruthless. They killed people and burned settlements. But after reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, I realize many of these movies portrayed a one-sided viewpoint. This book presents the viewpoint of Native Americans during the time of 1860-1890 when their homelands were seized and their way of life dramatically changed.
The author states in his introduction that this “is not a cheerful book.” He was right for a number of reasons. Streams that were once clear became “clouded with silt and the wastes of man.” Great buffalo herds were wiped out by hunters and skinners. In just a three year span between 1872 and 1874, almost 4 million buffalo were killed. One general quoted, “Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance.” As a result of this civilization advancement, Native Americans were forced to leave their native lands and travel to reservations where many died of starvation and sickness.
This book begins with a brief introductory chapter that covers a period of time from when Christopher Columbus encountered the New World inhabitants until the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee, December, 1890. Successive chapters detail what became of several different Native American tribes during the time of this nation’s westward expansion. The history and conversations of many of their great chiefs is also included.
What I acquired most from reading this book is knowledge and understanding of people and events during this time period. For example, I now know that the Black Hills of South Dakota was originally established by the treaty of 1868 to be land belonging evermore to Native Americans. No white settler was to cross this land unless given their permission. However, by 1872, white miners broke the treaty and all changed after gold was discovered in the Black Hills.
After I finished reading, I had a question that still remained unanswered. Why was there ever a need to establish reservations? Chief Joseph of the Nez Percés never received an answer to the same question. In the book, he is quoted:
You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases….I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me.
The illustrated version of this book, published in 2009, includes numerous photographs. Included is an excellent portrait of Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill taken in 1885 and one of Geronimo, the Chiricahua Apache leader, taken in 1886.
There is plenty to discuss about this book’s contents which is why it is an excellent choice for book clubs or general reading.