Book Review: Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

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


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I read Cormac McCarthy's grim masterpiece, Blood Meridian, I thought that its depiction of violence and depravity during the raids against the Apache's was surely an overblown act of literary excess. Sadly, after reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee it became clear that in the fictional account by Cormac McCarthy, that the violence against the Indians had been toned down.

Each chapter of Dee Brown's book - told largely from the perspective of the Native Americans - takes place in a different region of the country. The Apache in Arizona, Texas, and Mexico; The Utes in Colorado and New Mexico; The Nez Perce in the Pacific Northwest; The Arapaho and Cheyenne of the Great Plains; The mighty Sioux, who, under the leadership of warriors like Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, for thirty-five years waged a successful war against the United States Army until the Massacre at Wounded Knee broke their will to fight.

With each tribe and in each region of the country, the story is woefully familiar: It begins when valuable natural resources are discovered on Native American land and government agents are sent out to negotiate with the Indians for the rights to this land. They force the Indians to sign a treaty that guarantees that the Indians will be given land and supplies in exchange for their compliance. The supplies are never given, and soon, when the westward-bound Americans discover more wealth on the new Indian land, the Indians are forced (sometimes literally at gunpoint) to sign a new contract, ceding their new land and agreeing to relocate to ever smaller reservations. Eventually, in despair, the Indians fight back and attack the soldiers who have been sent to enforce the illegal treaties that the Chiefs have been forced to sign. In retaliation, US soldiers attack the Indian villages, burning houses, slaughtering ponies and livestock, murdering men, women, and children, and dismembering the corpses for souvenirs. This violence provokes further violence, until (as was the case with some of the Apache tribes) no restraint or clemency is shown by either side.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee is certainly not an cheery book; however, I think it is one that is worth reading. Looking back, it is easy to see who was in the wrong. We all know that, if we had lived in those times, we would respected the Indians, in the same way that we all know that we would not have had slaves in the antebellum south. Or the way that we would all have protested for civil rights if we had been old enough. This book reminds us of how easy it can be for people to let their own agendas, ambitions, and prejudices lead them down a cruel path.

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