My copy of the powerful book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, sits beside me now, dog-eared to death, pages
browned with time and coffee spills. Dates and names highlighted including such
beautiful and poetic terms as Time of the Big Leaves, Yellow Leaves Moon, and
Moon When the Chokecherries are Ripe. This American classic from 1970, subtitled "An Indian History of the American West, was described by the Washington Post, "not how the West was won, but how it was lost."
Such beauty aside, this is not a book for the faint-hearted.
There are chapters I can’t bear to re-read, and many of today’s words have been
hard to write. But since we at Sweethearts of the West, whether authors,
readers, guests and commenters, love the American West, this book is not to be
missed. The title comes from the last “Indian War” in December 1890, against Minneconjou
(Sioux) chief Big Foot at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in The Moon When the Deer
Shed. (This “battle” deserves its own blog post sometime.)
The TV and movie Westerns of my childhood often presented
Indians as bloodcurdling enemies out to massacre innocent settlers. The
occasional good “brave” was a mono-syllabic caricature, often a doofus. No American history class I’d ever taken
explained the truth about “Manifest Destiny.” Maybe because we couldn’t handle it. Brown’s
book documents America’s westward expansion through the eyes and words of the
great chiefs, vividly explaining four hundred years of injustice, broken
treaties, and betrayal.
I hope things are different in classrooms now. During my career teaching American Lit, I spent a whole unit on the history and plight of the Native Americans because no teacher or
prof ever told me the complete truth about, say, Christopher “Kit” Carson
(1809-1868). His expeditions through the Rockies made him a national hero, and
his first two wives were Indian. Yet in 1864, he relentlessly hunted down a
group of Navajo. Not content with destroying their hogans (homes) and livestock,
he chopped down their carefully tended grove of peach trees.
No one ever told me about the horrors of Sand Creek. Or of
the Cavalry at Fort Robinson sending good-will blankets to the Oglala Sioux--—blankets
infected with smallpox.
Or of Palo Duro Canyon, The Place of Chinaberry Trees. Only
a few white men knew of this well-hidden canyon in the late summer of 1874. Without
fear and stocked with food to last until spring, Kiowa, Comanche and Cheyenne
sought sanctuary from the whites. Almost two thousand horses shared rich grass
with the buffalo. On September 26, the
Bluecoats descended upon them, the warriors holding off long enough for their women
and children to escape. But by days’ end, General Ranald “Three Fingers” Mackenzie
rounded up the tribes’ treasured horses and had more than a thousand shot to
death. (In a subsequent book, I learned that the horse-loving Cavalry greatly
resisted these orders, and that the slaughter of the terrified beasts took more
than eight hours to complete.)
From the Nez Perce of the Pacific Northwest, I learned their
poignant history in a personal way because my husband’s relatives hail from
this area. I know Paty Jager hails from here, too and her expertise on the Nez
Perce far exceeds mine. But of the many massacres and heart-rending betrayals
in the book, the Nez Perce tragedy really speaks to me.
As with Squanto who helped the Pilgrims in 1620 and the
Taino who treated Christopher Columbus like a god in 1492, the Nez Perce
tribe met the white man in peace. In 1805, the tribe saved the
Lewis and Clark expedition from starvation and dysentery, fed and
welcomed them, and tended their horses for months while
the party explored the Pacific shore. For the next seven decades of friendship,
the Nez Perce proudly declared they had never shed white blood.
Their home turf was Oregon’s Wallowa Valley,
the Valley of Winding Waters. By the 1870’s, simply put, settlers
and gold-seekers wanted the valley. Negotiations failed. In
May 1877, the young Nez Perce peace chief Heinmot Tooyalaket (1840-1904) chose
to lead the tribe to refuge in Canada, the “Grandmother’s Land” (referring to
Queen Victoria), following in the footsteps of Sitting Bull. The whites called
this young chief, Joseph. By all accounts, he was a highly respected peace
chief among Indians and whites alike.
The fleeing Nez Perce consisted of 800: 450 “noncombatants”
and 250 warriors, and 2,000 horses. Outsmarting the U.S. Cavalry for 1,700
miles through the Bitterroot Mountains and Yellowstone country, the Nez Perce journey
has been called the most brilliant retreat in American military history.
Newspaper accounts of the day had Americans cheering them on.
However, the Nez Perce were severely weakened by the capture
of many of their horses. In October, the weary Joseph and his band stopped to
rest only 30 miles from their destination. By that time, U.S.
reinforcements and sharpshooters had arrived. After five days in bitter
snow, Joseph surrendered.
Then he delivered the most quoted of all the great chiefs’
speeches, of which I include a few lines.
“…I am tired of fighting… it is cold and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death. ..I want to have time to look for my
children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I will find them among the
dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where he
sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”
Lieutenant Charles Erskine Scott Wood, who translated
Joseph’s heart-rending speech, resigned his commission not long after and
became a powerful attorney who fought for the rights of the dispossessed.
When Joseph died September 21, 1905, exiled at
the Colville Reservation in Washington State, his physician
claimed “a broken heart” was the cause of death.
His name, Heinmot Tooyalaket, translates as Thunder Rolling
in the Mountains.
Listen for him. Read this book. Try to keep your eyes dry and
your heart from cracking while you read.
~by Tanya Hanson
My next book, Soul Food, # five in the Hearts Crossing Series, comes out May 4. To start the series and tempt you, I'm giving away a pdf copy today of book one, Hearts Crossing Ranch, to one commenter. Don't forget to leave your e-mail address.
Yes, it's all heart-wrenching and heart-breaking. I, too, know about the Palo Duro Canyon battle, and wrote a story about a young Comanche brave who escaped and made his way to Mexico. This is true, that some of them did meander their way that long distance to take up residence in Mexico. My story sits in my files--I don't know what to do with it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, bloodshed and killing on and from both sides. It's the way of the world in unsettled, wild open territory.
Thanks for the reminder and the wonderful information you gave us.
I read that book years ago, and it remains with me today. Misunderstanding abide in all centuries, don't they? And so many don't seem to learn from them.
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
Tanya. This is a hard post to read, but well done. This is one of my dad's favorite books, and one I've never read. You are right, it will be difficult to read it - I am sure my heart will break and tears will fall. I'll look for a copy soon.
ReplyDeleteHugs honey.
What an excellent post. Thank you for sharing the other side of the history. All I can think of is this is what happens when all that matters to you is your wants, your children, your dreams.
ReplyDeleteI hope that we learn some day that all dreams bear equal importance.
I read that book years ago and loved it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a powerful post. Thank you Tanya for the education.
ReplyDeleteTanya, That is a wonderful book to learn the truth as is Yellow Wolf: His Own Story by a Nez Perce warrior.
ReplyDeleteMy book that just released and I'll be talking about in May here, chronicles the flight the Nez Perce took to avoid being put on the reservation.
Not all Nez Perce lived in Wallowa Valley only the band of Chief Joseph, the Lake Nimiipuu, summered and wintered in the valley. The Nez Perce were spread across SE Washington, most of Idaho and NE Oregon.
Great post!
Celia, dust that baby off and get it ready. Sounds absolutely like something I would love to read. Native American heroes are hotties, too. Thanks for posting today.
ReplyDeleteHi Lauri, congrats on your upcoming Harl. release! I know I'm in for another treat. And I so agree. We study history to learn from it, and so many don't Boo.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, a book I can't ever part with..Thanks for stopping by today.
Hi Christine, it's a heartbreaker for sure. HBO made a movie about parts of it a while back and it was well done but a mini-series like that would take years to cover everything.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. Means a lot! xoxo
Hi Maria, thanks so much for the post. I so appreciate it. Enjoyed yesterday a bunch.
ReplyDeleteJanie, yeah, I love it too in spite of the tears. It was a life-changing book for me. Should be required reading, that's for sure. I'm so glad you posted!
ReplyDeleteHi Kathy, thanks for stopping by. You sure saw the underbelly of humanity during your career. Things never change, huh. xoxox
ReplyDeleteThis was so sad, Tanya. When I was a Camp Fire leader for thirteen years, we did a lot of studying of the Indian culture and grew to appreciate their customs and loved hearing their myths and stories. They were a beautiful people who should have been respected not destroyed. Something that still hasn't been learned unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteHi Paty, thanks for the info. I knew the Nez Perce were spread out. Our folks came from Idaho. On our Teton wagon train, the wagon master told the story of their journey around the campfire at night.
ReplyDeleteI will be first to get your new book. Chief Joseph has long lived in my heart.
Wonderful post, Tanya. Thank you for all the reminders of the heartbreak of Indian Nations and individual tribes.
ReplyDeleteFrom my first writings my underlying themes have been how Manifest Destiny destroyed so many Native Americans and how badly Indians have been misrepresented.
There are 6 1/2 billion people on this planet; no two are exactly alike. There's good and bad in all of us. In the case of Indian cultures, there spirituality is unsurpassed.
Oddly, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee has escaped my "reading radar." I'm ordering it today!
Oops! Their not there. LOL
ReplyDeleteTanya, your post gave me goose bumps. As many of us on this site are, I am part Cherokee and have long sympathized with the sad plight of the American Indians. You would think those who had been displaced in the UK and Europe would have had more sympathy and reluctance to displace others, but they didn't seem to even see Native Americans as human. That is a tough book to read, but it should be included in all high school English classes!
ReplyDeleteHi Paisley, thanks for stopping by. When my daughter was a Girl Scout, I helped chaperone Day Camp one summer and the theme was Native American cultures. I remember learning a Navajo dance complete with shawl. It was great.
ReplyDeleteI so agree with you. They were indeed the first environmentalists, taking only what they needed or using all they took.
Sad stuff.
Hi Joyce, it indeed a book of many tears and few triumphs. Oddly, many of the chiefs were highly admired by our own military. (although some were IMO sociopaths after extermination.)One of the generals chasing Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, considered him and Robert E. Lee America's two greatest generals. Just fighting for the "wrong" side.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post!
Hi Caroline, you are so right. The natives were considered "savages." This attitude prevailed in Europe from the earliest explorers, because the "savages" didn't believe in the Christian god. Highly religious Queen Isabella herself (she sponsored Christopher Columbus' voyages) was thrilled when he said, the natives believed in a great spirit. Because of the Holy Spirit, she reckoned they'd be easy to convert. But the greed for gold and riches and land expansion took hold. And we all know the rest. Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteTanya - BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE was one of my mom's favorite books. She loved Chief Joseph! She gave it to me to read after her, and it was the first book that truly opened my mind and heart to the 'other' side of the story. And the eloquence of Chief Joseph's words about war, not knowing the fate of his people, and how the little children were freezing to death, is so powerful that I cannot comprehend anyone not being affected by it. It makes me cry still, just remembering his words. I think his speech, "I will fight no more...forever", and this book should be required reading in all middle schools. Thanks so much for posting this! ~ Ashley
ReplyDelete