52 Books: Book 15

I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown on a GoodReads recommendation and I am so glad that I did. It was a difficult book to read as it was An Indian History of the American West and it is not a happy story. Unfortunately it is a true one.

If you have ever watched the movie, Dances with Wolves, you have had a little taste of what this history is like. There are soldiers and government and pioneers that are encroaching on Indian territory in the name of "civilizing" the uncivilized. Mostly it is a story about greed and the tragic loss of people and culture and animals. It is 400+ pages of horrible things that happen over and over and over to these people. At the same time that President Lincoln was making speeches about "all men being created equal," the Native Americans were not considered to be people. It is enough to make you sick and angry.

Excerpts from the book:

"The white man has taken our country, killed all of our game; was not satisfied with that but killed our wives and children. Now no peace... We loved the whites until we found out they lied to us, and robbed us of what we had..."

The only good Indian is a dead Indian. – American aphorism taken from General Sheridan's words.

The Comanches had developed an agricultural economy in Texas, but the white men had come there and seized their farmlands, forcing them to hunt buffalo in order to survive. now this kindly old man, Bald Head Tatum, was trying to tell them they should take the white man's road and go to farming, as if the Indians knew nothing of growing corn. Was it not the Indian who first taught the white man how to plant corn and make it grow?

"I have taken the white man by the hand, thinking him to be a friend, but he is not a friend; government has deceived us; Washington is rotten." – Kicking Bird

Of the 3,700,000 buffalo destroyed from 1872 through 1874, only 150,000 were killed by Indians. When a concerned group of Texans asked General Sheridan if something should be done to stop the white hunter's wholesale slaughter, he replied: "Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring every lasting peace and allow civilization to advance."

"I am an Indian and am looked on by the whites as a foolish man; but it must be because I follow the advice of the white man." – Shunka Witko (Fool Dog} 

"I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words to not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country... Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people to a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing." – Chief Joseph

"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land and they took it."