Andrew's Reviews > Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

I see your POV on your review of the book.......HOWEVER...your desire for more insight to the personalities of the individuals involved as your reason for a not-so-flattering rating seems a little harsh to me. VERY TRUE...but harsh. I say this because you address the problem we have to this current day about Native American History. There is no record or history written by any reliable source...that is taught in schools and addressed as a social issue today. TO THIS DAY...what happens on the rez....stays on the rez.....and if anyone cares to report about it, there are resisting forces from both sides.

REALITY.......the reservation system in the United States of America can be compared to a third-world country. THIS is NOT NEW. THIS is LIFE for the Indians. Living in poverty, plagued by poor governmental programs and poor leadership, alcoholism, diabetes and a general blanket of fatalism. THIS is a culture in the final stages of extinction. Beyond repair. This civilization that suffered the worst genocide this earth has ever been party to in written or recorded history. EVER.

I am Native American. I am from Iowa although my ancestors originated in the upper parts of Wisconsin. A peaceful Nation....not a warring community, they were herded to a reservation in Oklahoma where they starved and were murdered to extinction and now....there is hardly any of us left. A few managed to escape to Mexico where there is a "reservation" in Chihuahua. I worked on the Winnebago and Pine Ridge reservations as a nurse for Indian Health Services. I have married and moved away but I try to come back for a Pow-Wow every year to share what little spirituality and heritage we have left to my children.

REALITY.......this book is just the beginning. Believe me...stories of Wounded Knee and Little Big Horn and Sand Creek live on. Stories that would curl your toenails and eviscerate your soul if you were sitting in the room listening to them. The LIES, the ATROCITIES that elders pass down through spoken word before death of their personal experiences and those of their parents and grandparents are nothing less than chilling. I listen, I hear and I will tell my children when they are old enough to absorb the graphic stories. THIS IS WOUNDED KNEE. Alive and well and very tangible to this day for Native Americans.

As for knowing the personalities of....Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Cochise, Red Cloud...there is no record or autobiography....of anyone on either side....really. If you knew their personalities, would it change your view of historical events? Are you looking for a REASON WHY they were lied to, attacked unprovoked and treated as less than human by the U.S. government? Yes...they were wooden figurines pushed around the southwest.....figuratively and literally in history and by the author of this book. BUT...I say...how would that have changed things? I believe Dee Brown's intention was to chronicle a history that Americans would rather be left untold. The original publishing of the book was in 1970. Dee probably wrote about as much as the American public could stand at that time....without suffering a backlash himself for telling the awful truth.

And.......this is only a small fraction of the whole story. Albeit the most widely known but still only a fraction. The Indians of the East and extreme West suffered similar experiences before and after Wounded Knee.

I say BRAVO to Dee Brown for bringing light to a subject that otherwise would still be forgotten. A difficult and controversial topic to research and do justice to.....but I say BRAVO to a difficult job well-done.

POO-POO to the American school system for continuing to teach about the glory of "Cowboys and Indians..." believe me....in Indian Schools on the Rez......THE TRUTH BE TOLD.

Andrew - please remember that this book was written in 1970, I was 7, and the attitudes about Native Americans in the US was appalling. I remember being taught about the glories of manifest destiny, and that the elimination of native peoples was basically a good thing.

This book was written, not as an entertaining narrative, but as a counter point to the then prevailing attitudes about the 19th century American experience. Its dry style, suits its purpose, to provide the painstaking detail of the horror. It isn't meant to be engaging.

The date of writing is a very good point, Scott. Nowadays, Zinn is practically required reading in school and the pendulum has definitely swung towards the other (anti-exceptionalism) pole. Certainly there is much cause for shame in US policy towards Native Americans, and I see now that Brown shone much needed light on this issue. I still feel, however, that the end of the Native American way of life, for better and worse, was ineluctable from the moment Columbus arrived in the New World. I am very saddened and perplexed by the apparently perpetual casino/alcohol/unemployment-plagued Reservation system. It seems to me that assimilation (with due preservation of history & cultural heritage) would be the lesser evil.

Focusing on the prose style in BMH is like focusing on how Jefferson dressed. You're missing the point of what makes it an important book.

Focusing on a fragment of a review as if it expressed the entirety of the reviewer's thoughts is like focusing how Jefferson dressed. You're missing the point of what makes an insightful critique.

"I was not impressed by the author's prose, OR by his ability to spin a coherent and compelling narrative. The most glaring failure, in my mind, was Brown's failure to delve deeply into the personality of any of the individuals, American or Apache...."

To restate what I make clear in the first paragraph of my review - I am quite sure "important" books can be written in turgid or otherwise deficient prose. (Moby Dick & Uncle Tom's Cabin come to mind. Maybe Brown's book, too.) However, I don't think that renders an evaluation of prose style irrelevant or otherwise out of bounds when responding as a reader to a text.

Sean, I respectfully disagree, and my views about align perfectly with Andrew's.

When I read Team of Rivals, I too, knew how it would end. But when it did end, I found myself surprised by how emotional I felt about Lincoln's assassination! Goodwin did an incredible amount of research and fully 200 pages of the book are devoted to footnotes compiled in her research. I understand times have changed and Goodwin had the Internet and vast libraries at her disposal. But it isn't just the research, it's the writing style, and it just isn't good.

Thank you for your comment Pamela :)

Andrew, I'm surprised to hear you say that you are perplexed about the "apparently perpetual casino/alcohol/unemployment-plagued Reservation system." I am saddened by the situation facing Natives today too, although I am concerned that you might think the Natives on reservations "should" assimilate. Maybe it's just what I'm reading into it (written communication vs face-to-face and all that), but it almost seems like you're disappointed that they're not "assimilating," that you think YOU know what's best for "them." I hope that's not the case, as I feel uncomfortable about people making those sorts of judgments, especially when they don't live in the situation themselves, especially when they come from a privileged group and are speaking about a marginalized one. It can hurt, and I think enough damage has been done.

Also I'm curious as to why you think the mass genocide of Native populations was inevitable. Do you just mean that there was a huge number of of racists moving over to the North American continent, and it's easier to kill people than it is to change your views/outlook?

I'm really hoping you are willing take the time to respond. :) I agree with your review that Mr. Brown's writing is perhaps lackluster, but the facts he lays down are just so important, and all the points Pamela brings up are true as well.

Hi Paige... Thank you for your thoughts (and I join you in thanking Pamela for her powerful statements).

I certainly agree that this story must be told, especially to the youth today who conceivably could grow up knowing nothing about the status of American Indian sovereignty and cultural integrity today.

I really dont know what we should do with the current situation re: assimilation. I have no judgments to make (other than profound sadness at our violent history), and certainly am not disappointed nor would I ever seek to advocate assimilation. I am guess at root I am just disturbed by what I know of the current situation, what feels to me like an exceedingly marginalized limbo. However, I was blown away by a recent talk given by a member of the Tohono O'Odham nation to learn about the vibrant community and culture preserved today despite all the inequity and violence that their people had suffered.

On the inevitability point I think of a few factors... including of course the devastation caused by disease (some estimates say up to 90% of pre-columbian population). Definitely with this is the racism / religious righteousness that animated the white Americans (very much a conquistador mentality), and then finally the insatiable drive in ordinary Americans caused by capitalism & materialism. It is hard for me to study European / Anglo-American history without becoming profoundly disturbed / depressed by the shortcomings of the human race.

Hello Andrew, thank you for your reply! :) You've really put my mind at ease about advocating for assimilation. I too feel sad, and really helpless, when I think about all the injustices involved, both past and current (for example, currently John Boehner is holding up the Violence Against Women Act because it would change the way the law deals with non-Native perpetrators of sexual assaults on reservations... I feel so hurt and angry over it).

I hear what you're saying about the disease--I know that was indeed a big factor in the decimation of Native American populations. It's harder for me to accept that violence of the kind described in this book is inevitable or bound to happen. People have to work for any outcome--whether peace or war, people have to take a multitude of actions and plan a course of action for both. To me it seems not only more sensible to work toward peace but easier in many ways as well. I'm totally with you on being disturbed & depressed about European and American history. It's gotten to the point where it's hard for me to even go into a museum anymore--and I LOVE museums--because I really don't care for the dominant European art/lifestyle portrayed, and it's hard for me to enjoy the artifacts of ancient or indigenous populations without wondering how they wound up on display... :\

Aaanyway, thank you for sharing :)

I think you can appreciate the importance of the information contained in a book and at the same time critique the writing. If there were a better-written book containing this information I would have preferred to read that. As it was, the stories are so compelling, and the injustices so horrific, that I still valued the reading experience a great deal.

How Jefferson dressed is actually a very significant fact of history! He deliberately cultivated a "democratic" mode of dress as President to emphasize that he was just one of the people. Foreigners (diplomats and visitors) and even some Americans were appalled. Jefferson's sloppy/casual dress was received as an insult by the British minister to the USA, an insult to the British crown. So it's no insignificant thing, how Jefferson dressed!

i think i'm gonna go rate some books i haven't read now, very inspired