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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Dee Brown

4.21 · Rating details · 69,941 ratings · 3,843 reviews

The American West, 1860-1890: years of broken promises, disillusionment, war and massacre.

Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos and ending with the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee, this extraordinary book tells how the American Indians lost their land, lives and liberty to white settlers pushing westward. Woven into an engrossing saga of cruelty, treachery and ...more

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Paperback, 487 pages

Published 1991 by Vintage (first published April 1970)

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Jun 29, 2007 Arukiyomi rated it it was amazing

"The "land of the free" is no longer "the home of the brave.""

It took me a long while to read this.

It wasn't that it was a boring read. far from it. But it was a disturbing read, and the fact that each chapter follows virtually the same pattern made it that much harder to read. You knew from the start how each chapter would end, though you desperately hoped it wouldn't.

Dee Brown's book should be required reading for every US citizen and on the book list for anyone considering US citizenship. It "The "land of the free" is no longer "the home of the brave.""

It took me a long while to read this.

It wasn't that it was a boring read. far from it. But it was a disturbing read, and the fact that each chapter follows virtually the same pattern made it that much harder to read. You knew from the start how each chapter would end, though you desperately hoped it wouldn't.

Dee Brown's book should be required reading for every US citizen and on the book list for anyone considering US citizenship. It tells the true story of what the US was built on. Far from what is often claimed, the country was not built on the Christian principles of freedom but rather on what every other country, including my own, was built on: oppression and greed. It isn't this that troubles me. I'm not that naive. What troubles me is how this flies in the face of the many claims I hear that the founding of the US differs from other nations. It belies claims that the US is uniquely placed in the modern world to be the arbiter of global justice.

The catalogue of crimes against humanity detailed by Brown is chilling, but I was shocked most by where the guilt for these crimes lies. I had originally thought that the native Americans were oppressed and wiped out by settlers, miners, ranchers and mercenaries - the everyday man in the wild west street. Although these people may well have pulled the trigger on more occasions that most, I was stunned by how often the proud and truly great people of that continent were betrayed by the US government and military. Promise after promise was broken. Lies were deliberately told for national gain at their expense from presidents down. It is a shameful story of the greed which fashioned the US into the nation it is today.

The worst thing about it all is that over 35 years since Brown's book was published, that the average US citizen knows little of how their country was really founded. The west was not won at all, it was stolen outright. It is a humbling indictment of what some claim is the greatest nation the world has ever seen. If this is the greatest nation the world can come up with, we have truly seen that humanity is rotten to the core. The "land of the free" is no longer "the home of the brave."

Read more of my reviews at arukiyomi.com. ...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Stephanie *Eff your feelings* rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history, 2012

Fair warning, there may be some political views in this review which should not be surprising being that this book is the history of a government slaughtering a native people because they were simply in the way.

This book is a comprehensive history of the Native American from the moment when the white man showed up on this continent. It kind of goes a little like this.

White guys: “Hey y’all. Love the feathers! Wow its cold and we’re hungry; you wouldn’t be so kind as to help us out.”

Native Americ ...more

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Jan 16, 2008 Morgan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone. Especially Americans.

I am FINALLY done with this book. It took me forever to read, largely due to the fact that it is absolutely heartbreaking. Most days I couldn't take reading it for more than 15 minutes.

That said, I believe it is one of the most important books I have read in my life. I find it absolutely unbelievable that I grew in Wyoming of all places, where many parts of "Bury My Heart" take place. I was surrounded by Native American culture, I learned about them in school, we took field trips to see places ...more

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Mar 28, 2015 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, war, american, political, united-states, historical, 20th-century

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Dee Alexander Brown

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West is a 1970 book by American writer Dee Brown that covers the history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century.

The book expresses details of the history of American expansionism from a point of view that is critical of its effects on the Native Americans.

Brown describes Native Americans' displacement through ...more

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Nov 18, 2010 Trevor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, race

This was a remarkably depressing book. It is the sort of book that shows over and over again that there was literally nothing the Native Americans could have done to protect themselves from the all consuming and endlessly veracious greed of the European settlers. Just about every ‘tactic’ imaginable was used by the Native Americans – from treaties to war to abject capitulation – and nothing made any difference. The final result was always the same.

This is a tale of genocide. It is a tale in whic This was a remarkably depressing book. It is the sort of book that shows over and over again that there was literally nothing the Native Americans could have done to protect themselves from the all consuming and endlessly veracious greed of the European settlers. Just about every ‘tactic’ imaginable was used by the Native Americans – from treaties to war to abject capitulation – and nothing made any difference. The final result was always the same.

This is a tale of genocide. It is a tale in which some of the greatest American heroes – including Abraham Lincoln and General Custer, are shown as being responsible by their action or inaction for this genocide. This book has been much criticised, often on the basis of not being ‘balanced’, particularly in not acknowledging what else was going on in the country at the time that made certain actions of the government more or less inevitable. And, to be honest, I don’t know nearly enough about American history to give an informed opinion on that question, but what is virtually impossible to ignore is the effect of US government actions and inactions throughout this period and that effect was invariably the same – the genocide of the local indigenous populations. I struggle to see how this could be excused by other ‘pressing matters of state’.

The process was virtually always the same. The government would make a treaty with the local population guaranteeing land to them if they agreed to give up certain other lands. These treaties would then be broken by white settlers or miners. The government would do nothing to remove white settlers from Native American lands, despite their treaty obligations – but tell Indians to either move further west or south and to forsake their lands. There would be a conflict – generally involving atrocities almost too disgusting to restate by European settlers on the native populations – which would then force the native population to retaliate. This would then bring self-righteous slaughter on these ‘savages’. The Native Americans would be moved to land incapable of sustaining them, often with local diseases they had no immunity to, where they would be effectively starved to death by the government, a government which had promised to protect them and supply them with provisions. When it became clear that those directly responsible for them were (almost invariably) exploiting them, the government would effectively say, “Oh yes, we have given him a rather firm slap on the wrist and a very stern talking to. Sorry to hear about your children dying, but things should get better now.”

When this book was written these ‘wars’ were not a hundred years old. We probably like to think of these times as distant and regrettable – but they are terribly recent and their effects are ever-present. The last massacre of Australian Aboriginals, for example, occurred in 1928.

There were things that annoyed me about this book. One was the constant use of ‘in the moon when the deer loose their horns’ and other similar phrases, which really started to grate pretty quickly. The author is also much criticised for not quoting his sources – and this is unforgivable. However, that said, none of this leaves much room for celebration over how the Native American population was treated. This is a story of infinite shame.

...more

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Nov 15, 2017 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Matt by: Mariah Roze

Shelves: audiobook, diversity-in-all-forms

Dee Brown takes the reader on a thorough and quite disheartening journey through the military and political journey to settle the Western frontier of the United States of America. There is much within this piece of non-fiction that pushes the boundaries and Brown does not hold back in his delivery. The central premise of the book is to explore many of the Indian (and I use this term, as it is peppered throughout by Brown, though I acknowledge is a derogatory term in Canada) settlements and the g Dee Brown takes the reader on a thorough and quite disheartening journey through the military and political journey to settle the Western frontier of the United States of America. There is much within this piece of non-fiction that pushes the boundaries and Brown does not hold back in his delivery. The central premise of the book is to explore many of the Indian (and I use this term, as it is peppered throughout by Brown, though I acknowledge is a derogatory term in Canada) settlements and the government’s plan to push tribes off the land on which they have subsisted for generations. The tribal violation continued when the displaced Indian population was forced to settle on lands newly branded the possession of the white man, who sought to develop economic strongholds throughout the westward growth of America. From the Sioux to the Utes and even tackling the more infamous Sitting Bull tales, Brown offers a graphic description of what happened during these battles (labelled ‘wars’) and how both sides took no prisoners, each trying to fight in the way they knew best. While America grew under the watch of numerous Congresses and with the direction of many presidents, Brown shows that no matter their political stripe, land acquisition and further expansion trumped all else. It would seem that only Lincoln and Grant lessened the bloodshed and sought to build connections with the Indian leaders, though treaties drawn up with legalese that did not translate clearly and gun-toting soldiers shot first and asked questions later. The entire book is a sad depiction of the historical progression (regression) of American values and attempts to add to their imperial quiver, which has sadly not stopped into the 21st century, when more dreamed up needs for ‘taming the infidels’ emerged and left future generations full of hate and to carry the burden of being tarred and feathered. Not for those whose hearts are large or skin thin, Brown tells stories of the clashes, battles, and eventual swindling of the Indian population by the white man. Those with much curiosity about the subject can rely on Brown to offer raw and realistic depictions of an indelible stain on (North) American history.

This is my first book by Dee Brown, read as a favour to a great friend in her choice to initiate me into her book club. Brown’s gut-wrenching honesty is apparent throughout the various chapters, drawing on official documents from both sides (Americans and Indians), as well as historical tomes. The story, if one can divorce one’s self from the narrative and pretend there could be a degree of fiction, reads easily, though is by no means quickly synthesised. That there are elements of gore and ruthless violence is clear, but I feel that to hide or water it down, while perhaps the choice some readers would have sought, could only harm the book. It is important not to hide behind veils in order to pretend things did not happen and for this reason, I feel it is important for many to pick up this book and at least attempt a portion of it, to better understand what generic history tomes might attempt to neutralise. The depth of the research seeps through on every page, as does the premise that western expansion, while a political ideal to grow the foundation of the country, might have been sought while some in Washington were still inebriated on the victory over the Confederacy. I must say that I enjoyed as each chapter opened with a historical snapshot to allow readers to see what else what going on in the world at the time, drawing parallels and dichotomies in equal measure. To say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book would send the wrong sentiment to some readers, though I can appreciate much of the description and feel I am better for having taken the time to read it.

Now that we have put the formal review to bed, I turn to another piece that arose in me while I tackled this book. I had to ask myself throughout, what purpose Brown had for creating this book, especially with a re-release on the thirtieth anniversary in 2000. Being from Canada, we have been inculcated from a young age that we (the white settlers’ ancestors) are bad and that the aboriginal population have been maligned and harmed, such that apologies are only the tip of the iceberg. I have sat through public school, post-secondary, government jobs, and now the daily news (as well as my current position in the world of Child Protection) learning that the ‘white man is bad’ and that ‘we should rectify things’. Alas, I will dust off my soapbox and climb atop it here, so please skip to the end of you prefer not to hear my opinions. If Brown wanted only to add to the cognizance of the populace and exemplify some of the evils that were done to the Indian population, this book does a stellar job, which is why it won my praise above. If there is an attempt to bash the reader over the head with how bad the American settlers were and to light a flame under them (as has been force-fed Canadians, at least), I cannot express how angry this book makes me. History is a wily beast, though we are taught to always learn from it and build on its foundation, making ourselves better and trying to discover how we can find teachable moments. We have done it with imperialism (to a degree) and with human rights violations (to a lesser degree), but, with the plume in the hands of the victors, history is shaped with a certain flavour. Yes, there are those who are oppressed, perhaps without rhyme or reason, but for as long as the world has existed, the winners of the battles dictate the terms, however unfair as it may be. We can whine and bitch about it, going so far as to cry foul, but it is one of the bittersweet aspects to winning; that you can decide how the future will go. I think that the Canadian example has shown that governments are too worried about pussyfooting around and want to coddle those who make a stink. You lost... it was unfair, but you lost. We could assimilate you entirely and take the Indian out of you (and yes, Canada tried that), but you lost, so you should expect no less. We watched it happen in Africa and Asia for centuries, but no one thought to toss off the shackles when South Africa’s white minority assumed power. We complained and tossed financial penalties, but by and large, we let it happen. And, I must say here, by WE, I mean ancestors and governments around the world. We watched tribes scrubbed out and their language replaced with English, French, Portuguese, and others that still seem to find their way into the daily forms of communication. And yet, do we go in and remove those imperial stains? No, we accept them and hope that the community can, through their own desire, foster strong ancestral ties. Laying down and saying “we won, you keep whatever you want and take more to punish us for toppling your applecart” is not only asinine, but completely defeats the way history has run for centuries. And yet we sit here and twiddle our thumbs, hoping that the defeated will only take enough pie to satiate themselves and leave us, the victors, not to starve. There, rant done! Thank you Dee Brown for giving me a vessel to express them in a quasi-academic format.

Kudos, Mr. Brown, for bringing renewed attention to this subject in a rooted fashion. I hope that this book (and review) begin a discussion and keep the high-brow conversation developing.

This book completes my first project in the Diversity in All Forms Book Club, under November Bonus Reads.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/... ...more

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Aug 10, 2018 Darwin8u rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, aere-perennius, american, 2018, nonfiction

“I thought God intended us to live,” Standing Bear told Crook, “but I was mistaken. God intends to give the country to the white people, and we are to die. It may be well; it may be well.”
- Standing Bear, quoted in Dee Brown's 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'

description

One of the great histories of the United States. Published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a people's history; a history of those who lost, ultimately everything. From the beginning, Brown declares his intentions. He wants to tell t ...more

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Nov 13, 2017 Mariah Roze rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Mariah Roze by: Matt

Shelves: diversity-in-all-forms-book-club

I read this book for the Goodreads' book club Diversity In All Forms! If you would like to participate in the discussion here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I also read this as a buddy read with Matt :)

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was extremely heartbreaking, because it was so truthful. This book is told in story form. However, the author got his information from using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions.

The stories range from multiple different tr ...more

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Sep 11, 2009 Gaijinmama rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, nonfiction, native-american

This book is devastating, relentless, and depressing. It should be required reading for all U.S. citizens. High school history classes really should teach kids just exactly how our country expanded west. As an American of European descent, I am thoroughly disgusted. Invasion and destroying other people's cultures is bad enough, but we did even worse than take the Indians' land and systematically destroy so many of their cultures. Read on.
And yes, it is"cultures", plural. Most white people never ...more

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Dec 31, 2009 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-indian-wars

Written in the 1970s, Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee remains a popular, relevant history of the Plains Indians. This is saying a lot. Aside from vague knowledge of Custer, and perhaps a viewing or two of Dances With Wolves, I'd venture that most Americans don't know or care much about this story. That makes sense, since it's never fun to think about the genocide committed by your ancestors.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee is styled as an Indian history of the American west. It's told fr ...more

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Sep 19, 2016 Tim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: wild-west, favorites, non-fiction

Usually you can take with a pinch of salt what’s quoted on the back cover of books but in this case when the New York Times says “Impossible to put down” they hit the nail on the head. Quite simply a masterpiece of conscientious research and organisational artistry. Dee Brown provides an immensely sympathetic account of the plight of many Indian tribes as the wheels of progress arrived to wipe out their lifestyle, if not their culture. You could say Brown is too sympathetic but then for a people
Usually you can take with a pinch of salt what’s quoted on the back cover of books but in this case when the New York Times says “Impossible to put down” they hit the nail on the head. Quite simply a masterpiece of conscientious research and organisational artistry. Dee Brown provides an immensely sympathetic account of the plight of many Indian tribes as the wheels of progress arrived to wipe out their lifestyle, if not their culture. You could say Brown is too sympathetic but then for a people so cruelly trampled over by the wheels of progress you could also say this is the least they deserve.

I have to confess my sympathies were stronger for the tribes that fought back – especially the Lakota whose culture is perhaps the most compelling of all though every tribe in its way represents an ideal of freedom that tugs at the heartstrings. This is also a book about spiritual leaders – Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo, Chief Joseph. Eloquent wise men like Martin Luther-King with a vision, not just war-paint and rifles.

Though Brown names and shames many of the villains of the massacres he also gives credit where credit is due and exonerates certain individuals for posterity – “Not all of Anthony’s officers, however, were eager or even willing to join Chivington’s well-planned massacre. Captain Silas Soule, Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, and Lieutenant James Connor protested that an attack on Black Kettle’s peaceful camp would violate the pledge of safety given the Indians by both Wynkoop and Anthony, “that it would be murder in every sense of the word,” and any officer participating would dishonor the uniform of the Army.”
In short, this is a book you feel ought to be taught in schools because it makes such a strong and moving case for the paramount importance of respecting foreign cultures. Though it’s true these cultures could never have survived industrialisation in their traditional form this book highlights the cruelty that ensues when personal and corporate gain prevails over the spirit of community. As such it can almost be read as a grotesque metaphor for much that has happened in the world since.

“The whites are as numerous as the leaves on the trees. We know that. But what do we want to live for? The white man has taken our country, killed all our game. Was not satisfied with that but has killed our wives and children. Now, no peace. We want to go and meet our families in the spirit land. We have raised the battle axe until death. Call back your young men from our hills. They have run all over our country. They have destroyed the growing wood and the green grass. They have set fire to our lands. They have killed the elk, the buffalo, the deer. They do not kill them to eat them. They leave them to rot where they fall. If I went into your country and killed your animals and your wives and children what would you say? Should I not be wrong? And would you not make war on me? I speak straight and do not wish to deceive or be deceived. I will keep my word until the stones melt. The coyotes stalk to rob and kill. I cannot see them. I am not the Great Spirit. We were born like the animals, in the dry grass. You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight straight to our hearts. Tell me, if the Virgin Mary has walked through this land why has she never entered the lodges of the Lakota? Why have we never seen or heard her? I do not want to go to the land where she walks. The flies in those parts eat out the eyes of horses. The bad spirits live there. I have drunk of those waters and they are bad. I do not want to leave here. Here my ancestors are buried. Life is sweet, love is strong. Our days are not many. The white man too shall pass. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild ponies all tamed, the secret corners of the forest contaminated with the odours of the white man. The end of living and the beginning of survival. We might understand if we knew what it is the white man dreams, what hopes he describes to his children, what visions he burns into their minds so they will wish for tomorrow. The white man’s dreams are hidden from us. You say you want to put us on a reservation, to build us tepees of wood and glass. I do not want them. I was born at the foot of the Black Hills.”

...more

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Dec 02, 2017 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, academic-notations, history, unbearably-sad, war-war-war-and-more-war, non-fiction, illuminating

It is very possible you learned in school about the depravities of the Nazis towards the Jews, homosexuals, Russian and Polish prisoners, intellectuals and the mentally disabled before and during World War II. Perhaps you believe the Nazis invented the arts of genocide. We all know, too, that ultimately the Nazis failed, as there are still Jews, Russians and Poles.

Missing or elided over in many of our history textbooks and education, there actually was an American genocide which occurred before ...more

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Jul 01, 2013 B the BookAddict rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: true-stories, non-fiction, heartbreaking-real-life, books-you-must-read-at-least-once

I first read this at Uni a long time ago; a factual and disturbing book, it pierced my conscience. I decided to read it again to see if my reaction to it had changed over the years. This book broke my heart back then and it has just broken my heart again. There were many times when I just put it aside and cried. The awfulness is that this is a true account of the methodical annihilation of the American Indian. Throw away your ideas gleaned from 'cowboys and indian' movies. This is an account of ...more

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Sep 24, 2018 Roy Lotz rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: americana, one-damn-thing-after-another

This is one of those books whose great merit was in undermining itself. When it was first published, in 1970, it must have been a shock to the Americans who grew up reading and watching movies about the heroic coy boys, settlers, and soldiers who settled the West. It was—and to an extent, remains—a key part of our national myth. But like so many national myths, it left unnoticed the people who were repressed, marginalized, or exterminated on the road to the country’s greatness. Books like this o This is one of those books whose great merit was in undermining itself. When it was first published, in 1970, it must have been a shock to the Americans who grew up reading and watching movies about the heroic coy boys, settlers, and soldiers who settled the West. It was—and to an extent, remains—a key part of our national myth. But like so many national myths, it left unnoticed the people who were repressed, marginalized, or exterminated on the road to the country’s greatness. Books like this one, a people’s history, told from the perspective of the vanquished, are a necessary corrective to this, and perform an important moral function in our society: shining a light on the misdeeds perpetrated by our national heroes.

The greatest testament to the success of a book of this type is to render itself obsolete, and I think this is what has happened in this case—at least, to an extent. For by the time I went to school it was the Dee Brown version of the West, not the Buffalo Bill version, that was taught to us. (Admittedly this must vary a lot depending on where you go to school; I come from quite a liberal area.) Thus the story told in these pages was, however depressing, entirely familiar: broken promises, cultural misunderstandings, blatant dishonesty, and wholesale slaughter. As a result I admit I did not enjoy this book as much as I expected, for everything that Brown narrated was fully expected. Of course, there were moments that pierced through even my dullness, such as the description of the Sand Creek Massacre, which was as horrible as anything I have read about the Holocaust.

Brown is a strong writer, and evokes people and scenes with the power of a good novelist. But I was disappointed at how much of this book is given over to descriptions of battles and skirmishes. The pattern was always the same: the Indians are promised land, the whites decide they want the land after all, tension escalates, and then conflict ensues—with the American military usually coming out the victor. I think it was important that Brown narrate this fighting from the other perspective, since it formed such a cherished part of our myth, but apart from sheer drama I did not get much out of it. I would much have preferred that Brown dedicate space to the customs of the groups he is describing—the Navajo, the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, and many more. Without this, we get a sense of brave cultures being swept away, but not a sense of what was actually lost.

A few more criticisms come to mind. Though this book is well-researched and well-sourced, it is clear even at a superficial reading that Brown has imaginatively embellished quite a bit in order to get the novelistic style he was after. More importantly, now that we are (hopefully) moving past this Spaghetti-Western version of American history, I believe a different kind of book is needed. Any book that tells the story exclusively from one side, either victor or vanquished, will leave important parts of the story out. Apart from more ethnographic description of the American Indians in question, I would also have liked a much deeper analysis of the government and settlers. This would have given more insight into why these interactions played out the way they did.

But these criticisms are somewhat unfair, since they are predicated on the book’s success. Without a doubt this was a necessary book, and Brown did us a service in writing it—and in writing it so well. ...more

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Mar 10, 2008 Werner rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in American history

Shelves: books-i-own, history

This 1979 edition isn't the one I originally read in the early 70s, but it's the one I currently own, and referred to for this review. I read the book relatively soon after it was published, having heard of it and wanting (typically, given my fascination with the study of the past) to know and understand the history involved. But my interest in the broad subject was already shaped by reading about Indians as a child, and by sympathizing with them as mistreated underdogs in the Western movies and This 1979 edition isn't the one I originally read in the early 70s, but it's the one I currently own, and referred to for this review. I read the book relatively soon after it was published, having heard of it and wanting (typically, given my fascination with the study of the past) to know and understand the history involved. But my interest in the broad subject was already shaped by reading about Indians as a child, and by sympathizing with them as mistreated underdogs in the Western movies and books I'd seen and read (which wasn't the reaction the filmmakers and writers were usually going for!).

Like all nation-states, and all significant enterprises in human history, the American experiment in democratic, propositional nation-building has always been composed of flawed human beings, some more deeply flawed than others (and some horribly so), but none of them perfect. (From a Christian standpoint that takes the idea of the Fall of mankind seriously, that isn't a surprising revelation.) It embodied, from the beginning, both very noble ideals and goals and very ignoble and destructive popular prejudices and self-serving desires, which have been millstones around our collective neck for all of our history. The two heaviest and most significant millstones both are aspects of one common flaw, the failure of the majority of white Americans to truly identify with people of other races as fellow humans with the same worth and rights as themselves, most glaringly evidenced in the attitudes toward and treatment of black Americans, originally forcibly brought here as slaves to serve the white community, and Native Americans (American Indians), who were already here when the whites arrived, and were forcibly dispossessed of the land which they were at first prepared to share. (Although it rests on a misconception --Columbus' false belief, in 1492 and subsequently, that he had arrived in Asia-- the term "Indians" is not in any sense a slur, and certainly isn't intended as such by the author or by this reviewer.) In this book, of course, we focus on this second historical millstone.

This is not, to be sure, a comprehensive study of Indian-white relations throughout American history (though the first chapter sketches the earlier history by way of background). Instead, it concentrates on just one key part of it, the dispossession of the tribes living in roughly the western half of the continental U.S., from the Great Plains westward to the Pacific. But it perfectly illustrates in microcosm the same broad pattern of white aggression, duplicity, self-serving injustice and disregard for claims of humanity and morality which have characterized most interactions of the two races before and since as well. This is "popular" history --that is, written for interested readers outside of academia; but it is serious, soundly-researched narrative history, based almost entirely on primary sources (and to a large extent on previously often-neglected Indian primary sources, of which, as Brown notes in the Introduction, there exists a surprisingly extensive corpus). His bibliography fills nine pages; the book is also indexed, and footnotes are used to identify sources of the information set out in the 418 pages of actual text. (This edition, at least, also has a number of black-and-white photographs, grouped together in the center.) It is, in fact, a landmark in American historiography, even though the author had no graduate degree in history. (He was an academic librarian, novelist, and writer of several books on American history.)

Chronologically, the main narrative starts with the forcing of the Apache and Navaho tribes onto reservations in 1860-61, and ends with the massacre by the U.S. cavalry of nearly 300 Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1890. Along the way, it describes Little Crow's War in western Minnesota in the early 1860s; the genocidal attacks on Black Kettle's peaceful Cheyenne villagers and the grisly massacres that resulted; Red Cloud's war in the Dakotas which actually resulted in one of the few Indian victories here, though the effects weren't as sweeping as fair-minded observers might have wished; the ultimately unsuccessful efforts of Col. Ely Parker, the Mohawk who served for a time in the Grant administration as the first Indian Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to promote fair dealing between the two races; the near-annihilation of the buffalo on which the Plains Indians depended; the guerilla wars of Cochise and Geronimo; Custer's campaign on the Little Big Horn; the desperate flight of Chief Joseph's persecuted Nez Perce people in an attempt to reach safety in Canada; and much, much more. This is not a pleasant narrative; it's one that's profoundly tragic, gory and ugly. It's also a balanced narrative; Brown doesn't ignore the fact that Indian warriors sometimes killed noncombatants (though leaders like Little Crow sought to avert and discourage that) and soldiers trying to surrender, or violated flags of truce. But the overwhelming burden of moral atrocity falls on the shoulders of the great majority of white military and civil policy-making officials, and the majority of the white community which willingly put them in power, kept them there, and benefited from the atrocities --whites who professed to be moral and civilized, but whose posture towards the original occupiers of the land was almost unremittingly aggressive and treacherous. (My only minor quibble with Brown is over his assertion that the Ghost Dance movement was Christian; I would say it's more accurately characterized as Christian-influenced, not Christian.)

The contention is sometimes met with, on Goodreads as well as elsewhere, that it's an act of "presumption" for white readers such as myself to review accounts of the historical experiences of non-white communities; we may read them, in that view, but our reflections about them are too flawed by our racial identity to deserve to be aired. By reviewing this book, I indicate my own stance on that subject; IMO. people of all races should share their historical and current experiences with each other as widely as possible, and likewise share their reactions and dialogue together, in the belief that the commonalities that unite us as human beings are ultimately more significant, for our relations with each other, than the various experiences and particularities that divide us --that inclusion and acceptance, within a reality of pluralism, is a more promising future for us than cultural apartheid. Without belaboring the point, it's worth mentioning in that context that this entire book is the reflection of a white author about Indian history. Dorris Alexander ("Dee") Brown was a white boy who benefited, as a child, from significant and eye-opening friendships with Native Americans. The worth of his reflections, from that beginning, speaks for itself.

For a long time, I gave this book a three-star rating --the default rating I slapped on most of the nonfiction books I'd read pre-Goodreads, at the time I listed them on my shelves here. However, I changed the rating, on reflection, to better reflect reality. This is not a book you "like," or "really like," unless you're a masochist. It's not a feel-good read; it will make you feel sad, disgusted, and really, really angry. But it is an amazing book, in terms of the quality of the scholarship and the caring concern that Brown put into the telling of this true story, and of the degree of moral impact that it can have on those of us who read it. ...more

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Feb 25, 2009 Tom rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An important book, but depressing... and hard to read for that reason. A sad summary of the injustices done to the original occupants of this country. Unfortunately, they were a perceived barrier in the mad land grab that took place in the mid to late 1800s.

It's hard to comprehend the degree of evil done to them. So just imagine this from a modern day context.

------------------

- One day, you're sitting around, watching Oprah or whatever. Suddenly, there's a knock on your door. You answer and the ...more

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Sep 19, 2017 Zanna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: native

I was surprised by this book. It has a quality of immediacy that I did not expect, and that makes it read more like a novel than any kind of history. If Brown has smoothed out the narration of the evidence with poetic license and surmise, then I commend that work highly, because it makes that evidence, which, I think, needs to be read and taught and known, highly accessible.

The book is structured quite naturally into chapters organised to facilitate reading, retelling and discussing a particular I was surprised by this book. It has a quality of immediacy that I did not expect, and that makes it read more like a novel than any kind of history. If Brown has smoothed out the narration of the evidence with poetic license and surmise, then I commend that work highly, because it makes that evidence, which, I think, needs to be read and taught and known, highly accessible.

The book is structured quite naturally into chapters organised to facilitate reading, retelling and discussing a particular sequence of events relating to a particular culture or nation, and each chapter is prefaced with a (apparently arbitrarily selected) list of dated contemporary events such as the publication of books, the election of leaders and the passing of laws which are well known in Euro/USian Anglophone histories and/or popular culture, presumably to give readers a sense of when all this happened in terms of familiar reference points.

The impression left by this citation, along with the insistent presence of the people and events in the text is that this happened recently; it can't be consigned to the oubliette of a fabulously distant past when horrible people did horrible things that have nothing to do with us. Train seat neighbours sometimes commented on my reading; one said "that book must be sad... it was a massacre wasn't it?" I said "it's an ongoing genocide", but perhaps I should have emphasised how skilfully and how courageously and how creatively the "Indians" fought and have continued to fight for what matters to them. Lest we forget, the native has not tragically vanished, and despite the thousands slaughtered, none of this is over.

What Brown details is the erosion of freedom and rights of the First Nation people who kept the first white settlers alive, taught them to grown corn and other crops, humoured their childish wishes to sign papers relating to the land, and later tried hard to keep their promises, fought hard when they were attacked, negotiated hard and wisely with the knowledge of past mistakes (such as trusting faithless whites) but were betrayed and coerced to cede land rights, to move into unsuitable reservations where their activities were restricted, again and again, not to mention murdered, raped and murdered if they were women, or kidnapped if they were children. The law (white law that they had had no part in making) was used against them and never worked on their behalf even when it seemed to provide rights and defences for them.

Despite the repeated patterns of disenfranchisement, betrayal, displacement, slaughter etc, the book doesn't feel repetitive, and while it's sad and angering to read, it's also full of accounts that are immensely impressive, since the "Indians" were generally highly superior in fighting and evasive skills compared to the USian armies, and frequently won battles, successfully defended their non-combatants (which marching armies didn't have to worry about) and avoided capture against what seem like ridiculous odds. Additionally, various key figures among the "Indians" stand out as wise, heroic, charismatic or otherwise attractive, and their short-term victories provide some relief from the overall negative direction of the stories. Where the narration reveals the cultural practices of a people, I also found much food for thought...

with about three thousand Sioux and Arapahos, the Cheyennes moved northward, exiled into a land that few of them had seen before. Along the way they had fights with soldiers who marched out from fort Laramie, but the alliance was too strong for the soldiers, and the Indians [sic] brushed them off as though they were coyotes snapping at a mighty buffalo herd.

When they reached the Powder River country, the Southern Cheyenne were welcomed by their kinsmen [sic], the Northern Cheyenne. The Southerners, who wore cloth blankets and leggings, traded from white men, thought the Northerners looked very wild in their buffalo robes and buckskin leggings. The Northern Cheyennes wrapped their braided hair with strips of red-painted buckskin, wore crow feathers on their heads, and used so many Sioux words that the Southern Cheyennes had difficulty understanding them. Morning Star, a leading chief of the Northern Cheyennes, had lived and hunted so long with the Sioux that almost everyone called him by his Sioux name, Dull Knife.

At first the Southerners camped on the Powder about half a mile apart from the Northerners, but there was so much visiting back and forth that they soon decided to camp together, pitching their tepees in an old-time tribal circle with clans grouped together. From that time on, there was little talk of Southerners and Northerners among these Cheyennes.

I cannot imagine two communities joining together in friendship that increases over time in my culture. It's not only to find out what's wrong with us, what we've done, that I read books like this, not only to try to create (by being the change) a culture of remembrance that learns from its bad past, but also to figure out what should be done and learn ways of living and being which may have been destroyed or driven out of sight of or protectively hidden from the white gaze, to know that it doesn't have to be like this. To know the past is re-membering (putting back together, opposite of dismembering) to use in (re)making...

"The Cheyennes do not break their word," One-Eye replied. "If they should do so, I would not care to live longer."

The majority of the USian powerful had racist attitudes, believing in "manifest destiny", and simply wanted to wipe out the original population of the land. They expressed violent intentions and carried them out. Sometimes in these stories, white men with some power behave sanely or ethically, attempting to honour some treaty or informal promise or convention of engagement, or else they become sympathetic towards "Indians" in general or some in particular, and try to help them. Quite often the actions of these individuals backfire, causing the people they wanted to protect being put in more vulnerable positions, leading to their slaughter or capture. This shows how difficult it was to intervene in the overall trend. Politicians and treaty makers wheedled and tricked the land and rights away on a road paved with all kinds of intentions, but the logic of white supremacist capitalist settler colonialism was relentless.

I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men... Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I think of all the good words and broken promises... 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.
- Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces

...more

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Jan 29, 2020 Theresa Alan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a dense, depressing, informative read. Dee Brown talks about the myriad ways white folks screwed over indigenous folks by endless coming up with treaties and then breaking them. Many of the .tribes he mentions I’d never even heard of, and it turns out the reason for that is that white people murdered entire tribes of people right out of existence. White folks kept pushing indigenous people west, which we should all remember from reading about the trail of tears back in high school, but t This is a dense, depressing, informative read. Dee Brown talks about the myriad ways white folks screwed over indigenous folks by endless coming up with treaties and then breaking them. Many of the .tribes he mentions I’d never even heard of, and it turns out the reason for that is that white people murdered entire tribes of people right out of existence. White folks kept pushing indigenous people west, which we should all remember from reading about the trail of tears back in high school, but then white people realized that there was gold in the west, and therefore had to figure out new ways to give Indians the worst possible land, making it impossible to grow or hunt food, thus making them be reliant on the white government to send food. If you’ve read anything about Indians on reservations, you will have heard about the canned meat filled with maggots and other foods that are inedible for various reasons.

I did learn more about Wounded Knee. I thought only males were killed and I also thought the deaf Indian who didn’t give up his gun was old. According to this book, he was a young man and troubled, but the genocide and broken promises and endless lies had been happening for so many years, it was yet one more way white people behaved horribly toward indigenous folks. I keep hoping the time of screwing over Indians is over. They now make up only three percent of the population of the United States. But we white folks keep doing it even today trying to put oil pipelines under their lands and declaring areas they consider sacred to no longer be sacred if there is something we can extract for any value whatsoever. Naturally, the same folks who are treating their sacred mountains and areas this way are the same folks who scream about their freedom of religion so they can also control and belittle women and members of the LBGTQ community.

Virtually everything I know about indigenous Americans comes from books like this one, or a fiction class of Indian writers I had back in college, or Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. This is another book to help fill in the things I never learned in history class.
...more

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Nov 16, 2017 Candace rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What stood out for me in this book? First, so many promises made. So many promises broken. The hunger of white settlers and greedy men interested in the Indians' lands, and later, their reservation lands. It saddens the heart to read all that was done, the lies spoken, and the killing committed to obtain these lands.

Second,the destruction of the buffalo. Their carcases left to rot on the open plains angers the soul at the waste. All committed to (1) furnish the commercial markets and (2) destro ...more

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Feb 20, 2008 Andrew rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-us

NOTE: I in no way mean to denigrate the opinions and/or feelings of people who gave this book 4 or 5 stars. I make no assumptions as to why people have given this book such a high rating, though I do suggest one possibility could be to acknowledge the book's undeniable importance in presenting the Native American side of the story against the then-prevailing "victor's narrative."

I only read the two chapters concerning the fate of the Apache in general, and Cochise and Geronimo in particular, as ...more

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Apr 19, 2008 booklady rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone interested in learning the truth about our native heritage

Recommended to booklady by: a National Park Ranger

Shelves: war, 2001, history, travel, 2005, worth-reading-over-and-over, classic

I got this book on our first trip around what I call the 'Great Sioux West'. When my dh retired from the AF we took a version of the trip I always dreamed of taking to see a good portion of our American West. We drove through parts of KS, NE, WY, MT, UT, and then back home. We visited mostly historic forts and National Parks. We stopped at endless historical markers and for countless deer, bison, and other wildlife. And all the while I read this incredible book. Although it covers Native America ...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Chrissie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: usa, history, bio, downpour, alt, native-am

Audiobook was available at Downpour for only USD5.95. Excellent narration by Grover Gardner.

DEVASTATING. Very difficult reading. Dense. I am very glad it was written and that I have read it. The language used is perfect. I don't know how to properly convey to what extent this book upset me. Everyone should read it. Maybe you think you know what has happened to Native Americans, but you do not know the half of it. In 30 years, 1860-1890, the people were destroyed, and along with them fauna, flora ...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Kevin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, favorites, library-ebook

Remember the advertisement to prevent littering... now I know why the Native American is crying. This is a seriously difficult read that made my heart truly ache for Native Americans. So many lies and treaties broken to them. A must read for anyone who studies history.

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Feb 14, 2017 Amanda NEVER MANDY rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

I will keep it simple since I can’t seem to come up with anything to say, or more accurately, find the right word combo to say it with.

This book incites a powerhouse of emotions: anger, remorse, loss, outrage, sadness, disgust…

Notice how I left off the and? That’s because there are so many more words you can add to that list, which is why I have struggled with how to say what needs said. I had to put this book down so many times to allow my mind time to process the horror I felt after reading ea ...more

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Jul 09, 2017 Wayne Barrett rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: native-american, classics, western, war, history, non-fiction, 2017

This is a tough one to review. Not because it isn't a good book, the writing and the details in the historical events provided is exceptional. It's tough because I believe I am just emotionally exhausted by the amount of similar stories I have digested in the last year. Late last year I read "Blood and Thunder", early this year I finished "Trail of Tears", and at this time, even though it is fiction (it is historical fiction) I am re-reading "Blood Meridian". It is so much information that I rea
This is a tough one to review. Not because it isn't a good book, the writing and the details in the historical events provided is exceptional. It's tough because I believe I am just emotionally exhausted by the amount of similar stories I have digested in the last year. Late last year I read "Blood and Thunder", early this year I finished "Trail of Tears", and at this time, even though it is fiction (it is historical fiction) I am re-reading "Blood Meridian". It is so much information that I realized I already knew most of the details in this telling. This time around it wasn't so much that I was learning something new as it was rubbing an old sore.

I really believe I can look at this history with an impartial mind. I am part Irish, part Norwegian, and part Cherokee Indian, but what I am above and beyond all those labels is an American in the 21st century. I think that the most disheartening thing about these facts is that they reveal a serious flaw in all of humankind. How can we treat each other like this? Will we ever evolve to a point where we can overcome the pure animal cruelty that resides within us?

King Arthur (or was it Merlin) made the statement in T.H. White's "Once and Future King" that "might does not make right". Well, sorry sir knight, but the good ol' US of A has proved that wrong... as did the Romans, the Egyptians, and so on... We saw something we wanted, enacted Manifest Destiny, and the rest is history. We had more soldiers and better weapons, so our ideas were right, our laws were right, our means justified the ends, and our religion (predominately Christian) was the one true religion. The Indians were an obstacle, and under the banner of old glory and the Christian cross, we wiped them out; men, women and children.

The remaining survivors of the Massacre at Wounded Knee were brought to the Pine Ridge Agency just a couple of days after Christmas. The wounded, traumatized, freezing, starving remnants were stored in an empty Episcopal Mission. in the rafters over their heads were the remains of holiday decorations and a streamer that read, "PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN".

...more

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Jul 10, 2017 Esme rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is one of the more famous novels which recounts the tales of the Native Americans suffering through the loss of their homes, lives, and cultures. This book took me a long time to get through, and not because it was a bad book, or boring, but because it was so difficult to read through.

I was adopted off of a reservation out in Iowa because my mother and her family were so destitute they couldn't afford to take on a child, many Natives living in modern times are living in squalor, with alcoh This is one of the more famous novels which recounts the tales of the Native Americans suffering through the loss of their homes, lives, and cultures. This book took me a long time to get through, and not because it was a bad book, or boring, but because it was so difficult to read through.

I was adopted off of a reservation out in Iowa because my mother and her family were so destitute they couldn't afford to take on a child, many Natives living in modern times are living in squalor, with alcohol addiction running rampant. Sometimes I encounter people who think that most Natives are rich off casinos when in reality that's a very small minority of people who've found a way to capitalize on Americas gambling problem.

Anyway.... this book is rough to read through, I think everyone knows how the Natives were systematically killed, forced off their land, and are vaguely aware of things like The Trail of Tears - but I would guess that very few have actually picked up a book on it.

The way the US government and military broke so many contracts, promises, and deals over and over and over again leaving the Natives with no choice but to hope the next time would be different is so heart breaking. No country is without their black moments in history, but I think it's important to take a close look at them to understand where we come from, and what's happened to so many cultures that have almost been wiped out entirely. So many tribes and cultures were effectively eradicated, and many more combined and gelled together losing aspects of what made them unique - but there was no other way to survive.

I think this should be required reading in high school history classes, reading a few paragraphs or chapters in a history book and moving on to something else (or not covering at all as my case was) is a travesty and an injustice.

Be warned this is not a happy book, each chapter begins with a new deal that was struck, and you KNEW how it was going to end up - but you were hoping along with the Natives "maybe this time will be different", and each time your heart broke with them when inevitably the promises were broken.

http://weatherwaxreport.blog ...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Lewis Weinstein rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: a-history-bio-memoir

This is the kind of book you never forget. Every time I think of what the Nazis did, or some other of the many genecides the world has seen, I remember what we did to the native Americans who were living their lives in the way of ours, and I am a little less self-righteous in my criticism of others. Apparently, we are all capable of doing horrible things.

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Feb 17, 2018 Sara rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american, borrowed-from-library, history, non-fiction

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee reveals a sordid little truth about human beings: they have a great capacity to be cruel, to be prejudiced against someone not like themselves, and to justify any kind of horrid behavior with a logic that defies belief. Having just read The Narrow Road to the Deep North, it would have been easy to say, “How could the Japanese be so cruel and inhuman?” And, how often have we asked that same question about the Germans toward the Jews, or Southerners against their blac Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee reveals a sordid little truth about human beings: they have a great capacity to be cruel, to be prejudiced against someone not like themselves, and to justify any kind of horrid behavior with a logic that defies belief. Having just read The Narrow Road to the Deep North, it would have been easy to say, “How could the Japanese be so cruel and inhuman?” And, how often have we asked that same question about the Germans toward the Jews, or Southerners against their black slaves, Hutus murdering Tutsis, or the British who watched the Irish die in the potato famines and refused to send aid? The treatment of Native Americans at the hands of Europeans and subsequent generations of Americans is no less despicable, no less harrowing, and no less shameful. In some ways other atrocities pale before it. It was genocide.

Unlike many, I am perfectly capable of placing historic events in the context of their times. I do not suffer from an inability to conceive that many modern ideas were foreign to our ancestors, that we have made progress (and, I should hope so), or that the masses were fed a steady diet of fear and propaganda that made extreme measures seem nothing less than reasonable to them. Still, I cannot imagine that any man who termed himself a Christian could have committed such acts of villainy and slept well at night or thought he would not have something beyond measure to answer for when he came before his maker. How few men protested or even attempted to intervene, and how calmly and coolly the tribes were promised a peace that was never intended, is the part of this story that most appalls me. That men such as Kit Carson, who had lived with these people, fathered children with Indian women, and spoke so highly of them as a race, could have been persuaded to join in the mass slaughter of them is incomprehensible.

I could go on, because the outrage feels very personal. The flag that Black Kettle stood under with his women and children huddled around him as the wholesale slaughter of his people began, a flag that he was promised would be his protection if he did not take arms against American troops, was my flag. It was red, white and blue. It was desecrated at that moment, and it is not too late for me to shed tears for that offence. What haunts me the most is that I think that seed of evil is still alive in mankind. It rears its ugly head all over the world today. We need to all be on guard against it. The lie that can be fashioned into truth is still a lie.
...more

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Sep 29, 2020 Gary Guinn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, subtitled “An Indian History of the American West,” first published in 1971, became a classic, and has been widely translated and gone through many printings. It has been one of those books that I was familiar with for most of my life but had never read.
Until now.
And now, like so many people before me, I’m mesmerized by Brown’s beautiful storytelling and by the Native American people for whom he speaks. Each chapter begins with a brief overview of some ...more

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Jun 26, 2018 Helga Cohen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, favorites, native-american, american-history

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a heartbreaking account of the systemic annihilation of American Indian tribes across the western United States. Brown explores in a frank depiction how all the great Indian tribes were lied to, cheated and killed by the US government and military so they could settle the best territories and plunder the land and expand it for personal gain. Our United States was not expanded and built on freedom but on greed and oppression.

For many years before this book came o ...more

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About Dee Brown

Dee Brown

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Dorris Alexander “Dee” Brown (1908–2002) was a celebrated author of both fiction and nonfiction, whose classic study Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is widely credited with exposing the systematic destruction of American Indian tribes to a world audience. Brown was born in Louisiana and grew up in Arkansas. He worked as a reporter and a printer before enrolling at Arkansas State Teachers College, wh ...more