Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West 
asked by shakeonit on November 25, 2006 2:58 AM
First published in 1970, this extraordinary book changed the way Americans think about the original inhabitants of their country. Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos in 1860 and ending 30 years later with the massacre of Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, it tells how the American Indians lost their land and lives to a dynamically expanding white society. During these three decades, America's population doubled from 31 million to 62 million. Again and again, promises made to the Indians fell victim to the ruthlessness and greed of settlers pushing westward to make new lives. The Indians were herded off their ancestral lands into ever-shrinking reservations, and were starved and killed if they resisted. It is a truism that "history is written by the victors"; for the first time, this book described the opening of the West from the Indians' viewpoint. Accustomed to stereotypes of Indians as red savages, white Americans were shocked to read the reasoned eloquence of Indian leaders and learn of the bravery with which they and their peoples endured suffering. With meticulous research and in measured language overlaying brutal narrative, Dee Brown focused attention on a national disgrace. Still controversial but with many of its premises now accepted, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee has sold 5 million copies around the world. Thirty years after it first broke onto the national conscience, it has lost none of its importance or emotional impact. --John Stevenson
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I use to think Andrew Jackson was such a Great Man and leader of the American People and that the United States Government was the wisest and most powerful government in the world. That is until I read this book back in the early 1970's. The way I looked at this country and it's leaders was turned around from then on in my life. I had already gone through the period where John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King were assassinated right on TV for the whole world to see, in broad daylight. And then the cover ups! And the American people bought into the lies, the deceit, that was told to us, hook, line, and sinker. I had already done research on the Kennedy assassination and knew that it was a cover up. Lone assassin my butt! So, when I read this book by Dee Brown the flood lights came on. Watching TV as a little boy the "Red Savages" were always the bad guys and those programs were made to brainwash the American people into believing that lie as well. And we did. Until Dee Brown released this book. The murderous atrocities, stealing their land for gold, rapes of young boys, women and men by United States Soldiers, were all allowed and committed by this white washed United States Government then and now, YES NOW, towards Native Americans should be put on trial and a shakedown of this so called Government "for the people" should be the least we as Americans should do. But most Americans watch the six o' clock evening news and that is the only gospel they will ever know or believe. Of course white America made excuses and perpetuated lies to try and discredit Dee Brown and the truth that was told in the pages of this explosive book, over 30 years ago now. But, after selling 5 million copies and still climbing, it has stood the test of time and it's opposers. If you never read another book besides this one, as long as you live, this should be the book. You say, quit complaining and what can be done about it? I just did, I wrote it down and you just read it and you now know how to find out more by buying this book.
reviewed by mags on November 28, 2006 5:24 PM
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"Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" picks up where "The Trail of Tears" by Gloria Jahoda ends, for a continued look into a history where the home of the Brave was taken as the land for free after Columbus "discovered" the already inhabited land and named her America.
Dee Brown has done a brilliant job compiling and writing "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of The American West" almost as if this book were a first-eye report during the 1860-1890 era, a time when the growing crowd of white settlers moved westward in search of more land and after the eastern Native American tribes had already been systematically removed from the east toward the west. The work includes photographs of chiefs and people of prominence within each respective chapter of time. At the back of the book, there is an index for reference. The beginning of each chapter is prefaced with a time-line of other world events for perspective as well as the obviously well-thought-out quotes of important Native American Indians. Legendary Native American Indian tribes, chiefs and warriors included in this book are: Navaho, Modoc, the many branches of Dakota (Sioux), Nez Perces, Apache, Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Comanche, Ponca, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Ouray, Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Captain Jack, Cochise, Manuelito, Little Crow, Roman Nose, Dull Knife, Little Wolf and many others.
The Long Walk of the Navajo - a people once very rich but left destitute and dying on a parceled out prison-land reservation of unimaginable, horrid conditions - is a familiar walk of the fates of other Nation tribes before and after themselves. Although different in their own ways, each tribe's fate was related in their suffering the same resounding theme of systematic destruction due to the greed of the white settlers.
Anything not of the white way was considered barbaric. Instead of assimilating into their host country, the white people bullied and deceived Indians into meek submission to adopt their way and live on unwanted reservation lands or face death. When America had an interest in Indian land, they found ways, generally by brute force, to remove the Indians from their land. Unprovoked attacks, false arrests and killing and rounding-up survivors to take them to a worthless piece of land so settlers could stake land claims were part of the tactics used when the west was lost to white invaders. If land was not handed over promptly, entire villages were massacred, burned and destroyed, the survivors taken and labeled prisoners of war. Tribes of gentle, non-resistant Indians were conquered and exterminated. Cries of "Exterminate or banish!" were common among the settlers as was the seizure of land without pretense of payment. Gold seekers and settlers encroaching on land constantly provoked and stole from the Indians and then reversed the truth. The building of forts and the Union Pacific Railroad system in the middle of their hunting grounds and scaring the buffalo also heavily infringed upon terms of the treaties. Places that were sacred and holy to the Indian people, were mined by gold-crazed whites and trespassed upon although words of the treaties specifically said that no white man could pass over, settle upon or reside in the territory set forth. Those who fought too hard to keep their land or freedom were automatically marked for extinction. Any white who defended the rights of the Indian people were ridiculed, ostracized and worse.
Even if attacked first, the Indians were considered murderers in their defense, yet for the whites, a killing was considered an "act of war" and punishment was never administered. The soldiers routinely "acted with crazy minds," brutally massacring indiscriminately, sometimes leaving 2/3 of the dead as mutilated women and children. The Indian people only fought trespassing soldiers who were on their land and did so with brilliant war strategies. There were never fair trials because it was the white man's law and under that law Indians were "not persons within the meaning of the law." They were considered aliens at birth.
"Let us own the country together," proposed Buffalo Chief, who along with all Native Americans, desperately wanted peace and tried at all costs to find it. "Peace" almost always meant life on a reservation of the white man's choosing, never being able to leave the military, political operations without written permission. A promise of peace in the government's treaty would always say the Indians would no more be relocated yet they would continue to be relocated, sometimes four and five times. The "People of the horse," accustomed to traveling where they pleased in the land "where everything drew a free breath," were constantly sent to poor and barren "Indian territories" or reservations where the people became very sick or died while imprisoned. Tribes had to share the reservations with other tribes not to their liking and were punished severely if they left. Promises of annuities and peace in exchange for their land were continually broken and to the reservations was funneled bad food and sub-standard supplies at best. Still, the Indians were not allowed to travel in order to hunt their own food as they once did. The buffalo were nearly extinct due to the sport hunting of the whites who left them to rot. General Sheridan was one of many who condoned the hunting/extermination "to allow civilization to advance." Between 1872 - 1874, 3,700,000 buffalo were destroyed. Of those, only 150,000 were taken by the Native Americans who utilized every part of the buffalo for survival.
Long-time Indian adversary, George Crook, who was experienced in the dealings of treachery, later concluded, "It is too often the case that border newspapers...disseminate all sorts of exaggerations and falsehoods about the Indians, which are copied in papers of high character and wide circulation, in other parts of the country, while the Indians' side of the case is rarely ever heard. In this way, the people at large get false ideas with reference to the matter. Then when the outbreak does come, public attention is turned to the Indians, their crimes and atrocities are alone condemned, while the persons whose injustice has driven them to this course, escape scot-free and are the loudest in the denunciations. No one knows this fact better than the Indian, therefore he is excusable in seeing no justice in a government which only punishes him, while it allows the white man to plunder him as he pleases." Or as Yellow Wolf explained it, the unjust whites told "only his own best deeds, only the worst deeds of the Indians."
In death, the Indian people were also dishonored with no proper burial given. Captain Jack's (Kintpuash) body, for instance, was taken away after his hanging, to be embalmed, appearing in eastern cities as a carnival attraction.
Even if the rightful Native American land owners had ceded their land under proper and understandable terms instead of under dubious means and sometimes faulty translations, it can be said that they were never given full disclosure as to the havoc and destruction that was to follow as the result from the change of hands in the ownership and more importantly to them, the stewardship of that land. Also logical is the fact that the Native Americans would not have willingly moved from their beloved ancestral homes so connected to their own lives to a foreign imprisonment unless threatened, coerced or tricked.
History may have turned out quite differently had the Native American Indians consolidated forces and known their foreign adversary better. Instead of fighting against warriors in the manner they were accustomed to however, their enemy first appeared in disguise as a friend who took the extended hand offered in friendship and then chopped it off after the treaties were signed.
I highly recommend "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" as an important, must-read for every American, especially those interested in a fuller disclosure of the truth as well as a case study into the manifestation of human greed, acceptable crimes possible through mob mentality, dehumanization, intolerance, misunderstanding and other hideous examples of depravity. Whose heart would feel no outrage or pain has no heart left to bury.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
White Woman Speaks:
We called them "savages"
When we were the savages.
We call ourselves "native-born"
When they were the Native-born.
We mislabeled them "Indian givers"
When we were the givers of all deceit.
We considered this life to be "progress"
When we progress in the wrong direction.
(Rachel Elaine ~ 9-4-06)
Dee Brown has done a brilliant job compiling and writing "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of The American West" almost as if this book were a first-eye report during the 1860-1890 era, a time when the growing crowd of white settlers moved westward in search of more land and after the eastern Native American tribes had already been systematically removed from the east toward the west. The work includes photographs of chiefs and people of prominence within each respective chapter of time. At the back of the book, there is an index for reference. The beginning of each chapter is prefaced with a time-line of other world events for perspective as well as the obviously well-thought-out quotes of important Native American Indians. Legendary Native American Indian tribes, chiefs and warriors included in this book are: Navaho, Modoc, the many branches of Dakota (Sioux), Nez Perces, Apache, Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Comanche, Ponca, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Ouray, Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Captain Jack, Cochise, Manuelito, Little Crow, Roman Nose, Dull Knife, Little Wolf and many others.
The Long Walk of the Navajo - a people once very rich but left destitute and dying on a parceled out prison-land reservation of unimaginable, horrid conditions - is a familiar walk of the fates of other Nation tribes before and after themselves. Although different in their own ways, each tribe's fate was related in their suffering the same resounding theme of systematic destruction due to the greed of the white settlers.
Anything not of the white way was considered barbaric. Instead of assimilating into their host country, the white people bullied and deceived Indians into meek submission to adopt their way and live on unwanted reservation lands or face death. When America had an interest in Indian land, they found ways, generally by brute force, to remove the Indians from their land. Unprovoked attacks, false arrests and killing and rounding-up survivors to take them to a worthless piece of land so settlers could stake land claims were part of the tactics used when the west was lost to white invaders. If land was not handed over promptly, entire villages were massacred, burned and destroyed, the survivors taken and labeled prisoners of war. Tribes of gentle, non-resistant Indians were conquered and exterminated. Cries of "Exterminate or banish!" were common among the settlers as was the seizure of land without pretense of payment. Gold seekers and settlers encroaching on land constantly provoked and stole from the Indians and then reversed the truth. The building of forts and the Union Pacific Railroad system in the middle of their hunting grounds and scaring the buffalo also heavily infringed upon terms of the treaties. Places that were sacred and holy to the Indian people, were mined by gold-crazed whites and trespassed upon although words of the treaties specifically said that no white man could pass over, settle upon or reside in the territory set forth. Those who fought too hard to keep their land or freedom were automatically marked for extinction. Any white who defended the rights of the Indian people were ridiculed, ostracized and worse.
Even if attacked first, the Indians were considered murderers in their defense, yet for the whites, a killing was considered an "act of war" and punishment was never administered. The soldiers routinely "acted with crazy minds," brutally massacring indiscriminately, sometimes leaving 2/3 of the dead as mutilated women and children. The Indian people only fought trespassing soldiers who were on their land and did so with brilliant war strategies. There were never fair trials because it was the white man's law and under that law Indians were "not persons within the meaning of the law." They were considered aliens at birth.
"Let us own the country together," proposed Buffalo Chief, who along with all Native Americans, desperately wanted peace and tried at all costs to find it. "Peace" almost always meant life on a reservation of the white man's choosing, never being able to leave the military, political operations without written permission. A promise of peace in the government's treaty would always say the Indians would no more be relocated yet they would continue to be relocated, sometimes four and five times. The "People of the horse," accustomed to traveling where they pleased in the land "where everything drew a free breath," were constantly sent to poor and barren "Indian territories" or reservations where the people became very sick or died while imprisoned. Tribes had to share the reservations with other tribes not to their liking and were punished severely if they left. Promises of annuities and peace in exchange for their land were continually broken and to the reservations was funneled bad food and sub-standard supplies at best. Still, the Indians were not allowed to travel in order to hunt their own food as they once did. The buffalo were nearly extinct due to the sport hunting of the whites who left them to rot. General Sheridan was one of many who condoned the hunting/extermination "to allow civilization to advance." Between 1872 - 1874, 3,700,000 buffalo were destroyed. Of those, only 150,000 were taken by the Native Americans who utilized every part of the buffalo for survival.
Long-time Indian adversary, George Crook, who was experienced in the dealings of treachery, later concluded, "It is too often the case that border newspapers...disseminate all sorts of exaggerations and falsehoods about the Indians, which are copied in papers of high character and wide circulation, in other parts of the country, while the Indians' side of the case is rarely ever heard. In this way, the people at large get false ideas with reference to the matter. Then when the outbreak does come, public attention is turned to the Indians, their crimes and atrocities are alone condemned, while the persons whose injustice has driven them to this course, escape scot-free and are the loudest in the denunciations. No one knows this fact better than the Indian, therefore he is excusable in seeing no justice in a government which only punishes him, while it allows the white man to plunder him as he pleases." Or as Yellow Wolf explained it, the unjust whites told "only his own best deeds, only the worst deeds of the Indians."
In death, the Indian people were also dishonored with no proper burial given. Captain Jack's (Kintpuash) body, for instance, was taken away after his hanging, to be embalmed, appearing in eastern cities as a carnival attraction.
Even if the rightful Native American land owners had ceded their land under proper and understandable terms instead of under dubious means and sometimes faulty translations, it can be said that they were never given full disclosure as to the havoc and destruction that was to follow as the result from the change of hands in the ownership and more importantly to them, the stewardship of that land. Also logical is the fact that the Native Americans would not have willingly moved from their beloved ancestral homes so connected to their own lives to a foreign imprisonment unless threatened, coerced or tricked.
History may have turned out quite differently had the Native American Indians consolidated forces and known their foreign adversary better. Instead of fighting against warriors in the manner they were accustomed to however, their enemy first appeared in disguise as a friend who took the extended hand offered in friendship and then chopped it off after the treaties were signed.
I highly recommend "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" as an important, must-read for every American, especially those interested in a fuller disclosure of the truth as well as a case study into the manifestation of human greed, acceptable crimes possible through mob mentality, dehumanization, intolerance, misunderstanding and other hideous examples of depravity. Whose heart would feel no outrage or pain has no heart left to bury.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
White Woman Speaks:
We called them "savages"
When we were the savages.
We call ourselves "native-born"
When they were the Native-born.
We mislabeled them "Indian givers"
When we were the givers of all deceit.
We considered this life to be "progress"
When we progress in the wrong direction.
(Rachel Elaine ~ 9-4-06)
reviewed by soulful on November 29, 2006 5:58 AM
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This book details the atrocities and lies that propelled the U.S. through one of the most savage campaigns of destruction and theft in the history of the world. I couldn't put it down and I couldn't feel good about any of it. The machinations and manipulations have never been clearer to me than what Dee Brown presents. It's a must-read for every American who wants to know what this country was like a couple generations ago.
reviewed by freedrink on November 29, 2006 2:21 PM
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This is a fantastic classic detailing the demise of the plains Indians and deals with them incident by incident, tribe by tribe, chief by chief from around the 1850s to the early 20th century.
If the only good Indian was a dead Indian, and if civilisation was to prevail, this book is a stark examination of the lack of morality in the process, or at least the victory of might and legality over right.
One thing never mentioned in discussions about the US war of Independence is that the British wished to maintain treaties with the Indians and protect their land rights wheareas the Washingtonians were already in the process of making a land grab before the war took place. The Indians took the side of the British and they had hell to pay long afterwards as they were wiped off the face of America, along with the Bison.
Geronimo, Sitting Bull and Custer's last stand. Read about it here.
If the only good Indian was a dead Indian, and if civilisation was to prevail, this book is a stark examination of the lack of morality in the process, or at least the victory of might and legality over right.
One thing never mentioned in discussions about the US war of Independence is that the British wished to maintain treaties with the Indians and protect their land rights wheareas the Washingtonians were already in the process of making a land grab before the war took place. The Indians took the side of the British and they had hell to pay long afterwards as they were wiped off the face of America, along with the Bison.
Geronimo, Sitting Bull and Custer's last stand. Read about it here.
reviewed by jan1975 on November 29, 2006 5:24 PM
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This is a harrowing book to read, yet withal it is very informative and gripping. It was first published a considerable time ago, yet its impact is still great - one can't fail to be moved by the plight of the Indians when faced with the tidal wave of white emigration. It struck me that this could almost be described as a nineteenth century version of the execrable film "Independence Day" except that there's no implausible happy ending.
The main difficulty with this book though is that it is not a balanced objective history of the times. Indeed it is subtitled "An Indian History of the American West". Perhaps going to the extreme Brown does in his narrative was necessary to rebalance the years of biased images of how the West was won: I recall the endless stream of awful cowboy and "injun" movies churned out by Hollywood. Nonetheless, this is not a strictly scholarly work - other reviewers have pointed out the difficulty of relying upon the accounts used by Brown. There is an persistent underlying theme of paradise lost in the book which is at odds with the fact that in one or two places Brown lets slip that the Indian tribes were rivals, not brothers, and that various Indian tribes found it convenient to take the side of the white man.
Yet, that is not to detract from the book's value - not least as I stated above to rebalance the distinctly biased views of yesteryear. Lest anyone be tempted to utter a silent guffaw at one of the darker sides of the American Dream, very few nations can pride themselves in a spotless past. European colonialism for example was a distinctly nasty affair (one recalls the fate of the Tasmanian aborigines at the hands of the British). But the litany of man's inhumanity to man is the uniting characteristic of human history - the treatment of the American Indian just forms another chapter in that dismal record. "Humanity" - a species that has contributed nothing to the earth and taken everything from it.
G Rodgers
The main difficulty with this book though is that it is not a balanced objective history of the times. Indeed it is subtitled "An Indian History of the American West". Perhaps going to the extreme Brown does in his narrative was necessary to rebalance the years of biased images of how the West was won: I recall the endless stream of awful cowboy and "injun" movies churned out by Hollywood. Nonetheless, this is not a strictly scholarly work - other reviewers have pointed out the difficulty of relying upon the accounts used by Brown. There is an persistent underlying theme of paradise lost in the book which is at odds with the fact that in one or two places Brown lets slip that the Indian tribes were rivals, not brothers, and that various Indian tribes found it convenient to take the side of the white man.
Yet, that is not to detract from the book's value - not least as I stated above to rebalance the distinctly biased views of yesteryear. Lest anyone be tempted to utter a silent guffaw at one of the darker sides of the American Dream, very few nations can pride themselves in a spotless past. European colonialism for example was a distinctly nasty affair (one recalls the fate of the Tasmanian aborigines at the hands of the British). But the litany of man's inhumanity to man is the uniting characteristic of human history - the treatment of the American Indian just forms another chapter in that dismal record. "Humanity" - a species that has contributed nothing to the earth and taken everything from it.
G Rodgers
reviewed by scoobie on November 29, 2006 5:51 PM