Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West is a phenomenal book originally published in 1970 and written by Dee Brown, a librarian at the University of Illinois who wrote more than twenty-five books on the American West and the Civil War; it sold millions of copies and details American colonization from the point of view of the American Indians. An extremely powerful and illuminating look at American history, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a phenomenal classic. Due to the various instances documented, I may not mention all of them, but I will choose a fairly representative collection.
In the foreword of the book, it was detailed that Brown first became interested in Native American history when he was watching a film about “savages” being shot at by pioneers. While he was watching the film, one of his friends, an American Indian, told him that the Indians portrayed weren’t realistic. Brown’s father, a lumberjack, was murdered in a knife fight when he was only five, causing his family to move to Little Rock. After serving in the army in 1942, he became the librarian of the University of Illinois. He was described as an amiable individual whom everyone liked. He published Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee during the Vietnam War and after news of the My Lai Massacre reached the public. The book became a bestseller, for it showed the folly of nationalism and the fact that the vague notion of exceptionalism was a mere fantasy, as well as “dealing a near-deathblow to our fondest folk myth” (xvi). In total, his fantastic book was printed more than thirty times and did attract critics. However, it should be noted that cries that it was “revisionist” are quite stupid, for all history is revised: as new facts are made known to the public and as times change, our understanding of the events of history change in accordance as well. For instance, how history is taught in schools today differs greatly from how it was done while segregation was still prominent. Brown begins his book by writing that American Indians were first labeled as Indians by Christopher Columbus who, upon arriving in America, believed that he had reached India. Columbus, upon meeting them, wrote that American Indians were great people and were moral exemplars, seen in how they treated their neighbors with decency. Despite the various strengths of the American Indians, Columbus and Christian fanatics viewed American Indians as a heathen people, and were convinced that God wanted them to enslave and convert them, destroying their way of life in the process: “the people should be ‘made to work, sow and do all that is necessary and to adopt our ways.’” (1). Columbus, despite being treated well by his hosts, kidnapped ten of them and brought them back to Spain. One of the captives died due to disease, and the Spaniards were so fanatical that they rejoiced, for he was baptized a Christian: “The Spaniards were so pleased that they had made it possible for the first Indian to enter heaven that they hastened to spread the good news throughout the West Indies” (2). All in all, when the Spaniards went to America, they “looted and burned villages; they kidnapped hundreds of men, women, and children and shipped them to Europe to be sold as slaves … whole tribes were destroyed, hundreds of thousands … in less than a decade after Columbus set foot on the bach of San Salvador, October 12, 1492” (2).
In another instance, eight thousand Powhatans found themselves crushed by European guns, causing their numbers to go below one thousand. At Plymouth, the settlers would have starved to death if not for the help of the Indians. That is, “Indians regarded the Plymouth colonists as helpless children; they shared corn with them from the tribal stores, showed them where and how to catch fish, and got them through the first winter. When spring came they gave the white men some seed corn and showed them how to plant and cultivate it” (3). Some years later, when thousands of new colonists arrived and threatened their way of life, King Philip resisted, causing the settlers to virtually exterminate the Wampanoags and Narragansetts. To be exact, “King Philip was killed and his head publicly exhibited at Plymouth for twenty years. Along with other captured Indian women and children, his wife and young son were sold into slavery in the West Indies” (4). In yet another instance, American Indians were blamed for crimes committed by colonists in Manhattan Island. “When the Indians retaliated by killing four Dutchmen, Kieft ordered the massacre of two entire villages while the inhabitants slept. The Dutch soldiers ran their bayonets through men, women, and children, hacked their bodies to pieces, and then leveled the villages with fire” (4). The patterns of the stories given above were largely repeated over and over again wherever the Europeans moved. In America, colonists dominated, causing the American Indians to have little choice in their decisions. In the Trail of Tears, 25% of the Cherokees forced to participate perished from ailments, exposure to the elements, and starvation. Eventually, a “permanent Indian frontier” was established to leave the American Indians with some land. However, this concept was built on sand, for there was technically nothing preventing the colonists from invading even further. In 1848, a massive gold rush was initiated in California. The authorities justified their actions by stating that “The Europeans and their descendants were ordained by destiny to rule all of America. They were the dominant race and therefore responsible for the Indians-along with their lands, their forests, and their mineral wealth” (8). Brown then takes time to write about the various tribes in America before moving on to talk about the story of Fort Defiance. Fort Defiance was the first fortress to be built in Navajo country, and while the colonists and the American Indians initially got along well, things quickly fell apart when the colonists cheated at a game that the Indians valued. The game involved horsemanship, and the colonists cheated by secretly cutting the bridle rein of the saddle. The Navajos, rightfully angry, asked the judges (who were all colonists/soldiers) to start the contest again. As expected, they refused and demanded the Indians to give them all the betting money.
After protesting, Captain Nicholas Hodt testified that “The Navahos, squaws, and children ran in all directions and were shot and bayoneted … I saw a soldier murdering two little children and a woman … After the massacre, there were no more Indians to be seen about the post with the exception of a few squaws, favorites of the officers” (18 and 20). That terrible event occurred on September 22, 1861, and in September 1862, Star chief Carleton took it upon himself to steal the land of the Navajo. He stated in his own words: “‘There is to be no council held with the Indians, nor any talks. The men are to be slain whenever and wherever they can be found. The women and children may be taken as prisoners, but, of course, they are not to be killed’” (20). Carleton, to encourage his soldiers to be vicious, offered a bounty for every killed Navajo. That is, “To prove their soldierly abilities, they began cutting off the knot of hair fastened by a red string which the Navahos wore on their heads. The Navahos could not believe that Kit Carson condoned scalping, which they considered a barbaric custom introduced by the Spaniards'' (24-5). The Navahos were defeated by Carleton due to them not having the necessary weapons, and when they surrendered, an official named Carson stated that all the property belonging to the Navaho are to be destroyed, “including their fine peach orchards, more than five thousand trees” (27). The prisoners were made to march to other forts, and many of them died en route. One of the American Indians tellingly protested, saying that they had never committed crimes and that those who were being forced to lose everything they held dear didn't deserve what was happening to them. Carleton justified his atrocious actions by stating that “‘The exodus of this whole people from the land of their fathers is not only an interesting but a touching sight. They have fought us gallantly for years on years; they have defended their mountains … but when, at length, they found it was their destiny, too, as it had been that of their brethren, tribe after tribe, away back toward the rising of the sun, to give way to the insatiable progress our race, they threw down their arms, and, as brave men entitled to our admiration and respect, have come to us with confidence in our magnanimity … we will not dole out to them a miser’s pittance in return for what they know to be and what we know to be a princely realm.’” (31). Of course, the Navajos were forced onto a small reservation, where many died from the climate, for they were not used to it. They were given little food but were allowed to return to their ancestral homes later on. As bad as their experience was, compared to the rest of the tribes, theirs was one of the luckiest.
Brown moves on to discuss Little Crow, the leader of the Mdwekanton tribe who had tried to negotiate with the colonists. All in all, Little Crow “was sixty years old and always wore long-sleeved garments to cover his lower arms and wrists, which were withered as the result of badly healed wounds received in battle during his youth. Little Crow had signed both the treaties that tricked his people out of their land and the money promised for the land. He had been to Washington to see … President Buchanan; he had exchanged his breechclouts and blankets for trousers and brass-buttoned jackets; he had joined the Episcopal Church, built a house, and started a farm” (39). Despite his efforts, his tribe was continued to be cheated by the Europeans. He confronted Thomas Galbraith, a negotiator, and asked for the colonists to hold up their end of the bargain. Galbraith turned to some colonial traders and asked them what should be done. Andrew Myrick, a trader, “declared contemptuously: ‘So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung.’” (40). Remarkably, the American Indians were able to keep their temper. Soon, however, conflict arose: four young American Indians, in a fit of rage and starvation, killed three men and two women. Little Crow, upon learning of the murders, knew that the settlers would exact their vengeance. While he wanted peace, the others had had enough of being exploited. Little Crow then decided to wage war, and he called for other tribes to help him. The next morning, he ordered his tribe to kill the traders. In one instance, as testified by Big Eagle, “‘Mr. Andrew Myrick … had refused some hungry Indians credit a short time before when they asked him for some provisions. He said to them: ‘Go and eat grass.’ Now he was lying on the ground dead, with his mouth stuffed full of grass, and the Indians were saying tauntingly: ‘Myrick is eating grass himself.’” (45). All in all, twenty males were killed and ten women and children were taken as hostages. The Santees soon came across a company of forty-five soldiers. The chief, John Marsh, acted arrogantly and found himself in an ambush. Twenty-four of the original forty-five survived. Made more confident by their victory, it was decided by Little Crow to attack the fort. While they fought wisely and bravely, they were still no match for guns. Little Crow was wounded and tried to negotiate a surrender but was unsuccessful, for some of the young men from his tribe indiscriminately slew white settlers. The war was continued, even when the colonists received backup. As Wabasha, an American Indian who fought at Fort Ridgely and New Ulm said, “‘I have no confidence that the whites will stand by any agreement they make if we give them up. Ever since we treated with them, their agents and traders have robbed and cheated us. Some of our people have been shot, some hung; others placed upon floating ice and drowned; and many have been starved in their prisons. It was not the intention of the nation to kill any of the whites until after the four men returned from Acton and told what they had done. When they did this, all the young men became excited, and commenced the massacre … We may regret what has happened, but the matter has gone too far to be remedied. We have got to die. Let us, then, kill as many of the whites as possible, and the let the prisoners die with us.’” (55).
Wabasha later betrayed Little Crow by telling a general named Sibley that he was willing to bring the war prisoners forward, and when the Santee tribe fought the Americans, they were soundly beaten, again by the technology. In the words of Big Eagle, a chief who participated in the war, “‘We retreated in some disorder, though the whites did not follow us. We lost fourteen or fifteen men killed … We carried off no dead bodies but took away all our wounded. The whites scalped all our dead men’” (57). Ironically, Sibley said that scalping was wrong for “civilized” and “Christian” men and that even American Indians didn't deserve such a fate (who’s civilized here?) (57). Little Crow made a speech after the battle, saying that he was ashamed to call himself a Sioux and that they had to leave. After the war prisoners were delivered (107 whites and 162 half-breeds), Sibley treated those who surrendered with impunity, chaining them together. They then started some bogus trials in which innocent people were hung. By the end of the mass trials on November 5, 303 Santees had been sentenced to death. Sibley justified his actions by calling the Native Americans “‘devils in human shape’” (59). Abraham Lincoln, upon learning of the future executions of 303 Santees, mandated that “only” thirty-nine were to be executed. Those who were allowed their lives were sentenced to prison. Little Crow himself was killed by two settlers “returning home from a deer hunt. As the state of Minnesota had recently begun paying twenty-five-dollars’ bounty for Sioux scalps, the settlers immediately opened fire” (63). Little Crow’s son was sentenced to hanging but was allowed his life and sentenced to prison. After being released, he changed his name to Thomas Wakeman and became a Christian, clearly showing that he recognized resistance as utterly futile. The remainders of Santee land were seized by white settlers and they commonly mandated “‘Exterminate or banish,’” and threw stones and curses at 770 Santees who left their homes via steamboat on May 4, 1863 (65). The Santees were sent to Crow Creek, a bad place to live, for “The soil was barren, rainfall scanty, wild game scarce, and the alkaline water unfit for drinking. Soon the surrounding hills were covered with graves; of the 1,300 Santees brought there in 1863, less than a thousand survived their first winter” (65). One of the survivors of Crow Creek was Sitting Bull, who would resist colonial encroachment of Indian territory.
Brown then discusses the Cheyennes, who tried to negotiate with soldiers who encroached on their territory. While an American Indian named Lean Bear was escorted by another called Star, the soldiers responded by shooting and killing them. Enraged, the Cheyennes attacked, killing some of them. Black Kettle, the chief, still tried to negotiate, informing the authorities that the soldiers were the ones who started the fight. Regardless, Colonel Chivington ordered his soldiers to “‘kill Cheyennes whenever and wherever found.’” (73). Colonel Chivington then said that he gave the order because the Cheyennes have killed soldiers, not mentioning the fact that the soldiers have slaughtered Cheyennes to begin with. Governor Evans, an official, stated to an American official, Wynkoop, that the Third Colorado Regiment had been formed because “Washington officials had given him permission to raise the new regiment because he had sworn it was necessary for protection against hostile Indians, and if he now made peace the Washington politicians would accuse him of misrepresentation” (79). Wynkoop, for his decent treatment of the Cheyennes, was degraded by the authorities and was fired from his job as commander of Fort Lyon. The Sand Creek Massacre was initiated and targeted women and children and was started by the colonial authorities after realizing that the males had gone hunting. In Brown’s own words, “Altogether there were about six hundred Indians in the creek bend, two-thirds of them being women and children. Most of the warriors were several miles to the east hunting buffalo for the camp, as they had been told to do by Major Anthony. So confident were the Indians of absolute safety, they kept no night watch except of the pony herd which was corralled below the creek” (87). When the Cheyennes realized that they were under assault, they gathered underneath an American flag: Colonel Greenwold told Black Kettle that no person would be killed if they were to congregate under the flag. Regardless, an old man, seventy-five years old, White Antelope, was brutally murdered by soldiers when he tried to negotiate. American soldiers then shot at the civilians and proceeded to heinously massacre them. As a soldier, Robert Bent, testified, “‘When the troops came up to them they ran out and showed their persons … and begged for mercy, but the soldiers shot them all. I saw one squaw lying on the bank whose leg had been broken by a shell; a soldier came up to her with a drawn saber; she raised her arm to protect herself, when he struck, breaking her arm; she rolled over and raised her other arm, when he struck, breaking it, and then left her without killing her. There seemed to be indiscriminate slaughter … There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed … Every one I saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child, as I thought, lying by her side … I saw the body of White Antelope with the privates cut off, and I heard a soldier say he was going to make a tobacco pouch out of them … I saw a little girl about five years of age who had been hid in the sand; two soldiers discovered her, drew their pistols and shot her, and then pulled her out of the sand by the arms. I saw quite a number of infants in arms killed with their mothers’” (90).
Before the massacre even began, a genocidal attitude was present and popular. Colonel Chivington “advocated the killing and scalping of all Indians, even infants. ‘Nits make lice!’ he declared” (90). The atrocities at Sandy Creek were confirmed by multiple soldiers, and Lieutenant James Connor himself testified that genitals were amputated, people scalped: “‘I heard of one instance of a child a few months old being thrown in the feed-box of a wagon, and after being carried some distance left on the ground to perish; I also heard of numerous instances in which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddle-bows and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks.’” (90). By the end of the massacre, 133 American Indians were slain (105 were women and children, 28 men). Many of the casualties on the side of the Americans were due to them shooting each other because they were drunk. A survivor of the grisly affair, Leg-in-the-Water, tellingly detailed, “‘But what do we want to live for? 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 want to go and meet our families in the spirit land. We loved the whites until we found out they lied to us, and robbed us of what we had. We have raised the battle as until death.’” (94). On October 14, 1865, the remains of the Cheyennes and Arapahos surrendered all their remaining land to the whites.
As shown in the instances above, American colonization could be noted to follow a pattern: the settlers would usually pretend to be willing to coexist, sign a “treaty” with the chiefs (who commonly were generous to the settlers and didn't understand the basic principles of contracts), encroach on their land over long periods of time (and bringing more people to use as a military safeguard), mistreat the Native Americans, massacre and imprison any who protest or participate in war (using guns to have an immediate advantage), and finally steal all the land, sending the American Indians to reservations that have only poor land. The basic tenets of the above pattern occurred to most American Indian tribes, making it impossible to calculate all the cultures devastated by racism, bigotry, and religious fanaticism. Two years after Sand Creek, the Fetterman Massacre occurred. This was viewed as a victory by the Native Americans but as a terrible loss for the whites. Brown describes that Colonel Carrington was surprised at the barbarism inflicted on the settlers who had been slain: “He brooded upon the reasons for such savagery, and eventually wrote an essay on the subject, philosophizing that the Indians were compelled by some paganistic belief to commit the terrible deeds … Had Colonel Carrington visited the scene of the Sand Creek Massacre … he would have seen the same mutilations-committed upon Indians by Colonel Chivington’s soldiers. The Indians who ambushed Fetterman were only imitating their enemies, a practice which in warfare, as in civilian life, is said to be the sincerest form of flattery” (137). In another instance, the Cheyennes asked the settlers whether they could use their traditional hunting grounds, and were refused. A battle soon ensued which saw the death of the famed leader Roman Nose in the Battle of Beecher’s Island: a bullet shattered his spine, causing him to die the same day. The settlers “boasted they had killed ‘hundreds of redskins,’ and although the Indians could count no more thirty, the loss of Roman Nose was incalculable. They would always remember it as the Fight When Roman Nose Was Killed” (166).
Black Kettle eventually prepared the Cheyennes and Arapahos for a potential attack by the settlers. He wanted to prevent another Sand Creek from occurring, and, sure enough, the tribes were assaulted by soldiers with guns. When Black Kettle noticed the soldiers, he alerted his tribe by firing a gun in the air. He prepared to negotiate with the settlers, but was unsuccessful, for there was mist, making it impossible to see where they were coming from. Brown writes that “It was Sand Creek all over again. He reached for his wife’s hand, lifted her up behind him, and lashed the pony into quick motion. She had survived Sand Creek with him; now, like tortured dreamers dreaming the same nightmare over again, they were fleeing again from screaming bullets” (168). They were soon intercepted by soldiers, and Black Kettle “lifted his hand in the sign gesture of peace,” only to be repeatedly shot: “A bullet burned into his stomach … Another bullet caught him in the back … Several bullets knocked his wife off beside him, and the pony ran away. The cavalrymen splashed on across the ford, riding right over Black Kettle and his wife, splattering mud upon their dead bodies” (168). The soldiers were ordered by Sheridan to “‘proceed south in the direction of the Antelope Hills, thence toward the Washita River, the supposed winter seat of the hostile tribes; to destroy their villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and bring back all women and children’” (168). Indeed, the soldiers followed the orders, murdering hundreds of ponies with gunfire before slaughtering civilians indiscriminately, seeing that they felt separating the women and children from the men was too dangerous: “They killed 103 Cheyennes, but only eleven of them were warriors. They captured 53 women and children” (169). Sheridan, upon hearing of the slaughter, rejoiced, stating that the American Indians were “‘savage butchers’” and “‘savage bands of cruel marauders’” (169). He went so far as to openly lie, saying that he was merciful to Black Kettle whom his soldiers had gunned down in cold blood by alleging that he had offered him surrender prior to the massacre. Wynkoop, one of the few whites sympathetic to the Native Americans, upon hearing of the death of Black Kettle, knew that foul play had occurred. Sheridan justified his wanton massacre by stating that those who were against them were “‘aiders and abettors of savages who murdered, without mercy, men, women, and children.’” (170). General Sherman supported Sheridan’s actions, and “ordered him to continue killing hostile Indians and their ponies, but at the same time advised that he establish the friendly Indians in camps where they could be fed and exposed to the white man’s civilized culture” (170). As an infamous saying frequently said by settlers went, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
The Chiricahua Apache eventually fought the colonists after being repeatedly wronged. One of their members, Cochise, was asked in February 1861 to attend a conference with a military officer. Unsuspecting of danger, he took with him five family members, including a brother, two nephews, a woman, and a child. Lieutenant George N. Bascom of the Seventh Infantry accused him of stealing cattle and a half-breed boy: the moment Cochise entered the tent, he was immediately surrounded by soldiers. He told the lieutenant that he had nothing to do with it, and, seeing the situation escalate, escaped by cutting a hole in the tent. While he was wounded, he survived. However, his relatives were now prisoners, and “To get them free, Cochise and his warriors captured three white men on the Butterfield Trail, and tried to make an exchange with the lieutenant. Bascom refused the exchange unless the stolen cattle and the boy were included” (194). Enraged at Bascom’s insolence, Cochise made his tribe block Apache Pass and attacked the infantry company. He eventually executed the prisoners by piercing them with lances (they had learned this brutal method from the Spaniard colonists), causing Bascom to hang three of Cochise’s relatives. Cochise declared war and was able to initially repel the settlers. However, they were repelled by guns, and his father-in-law, Mangas, a seventy-year-old man, was wounded. Cochise, after forcing a doctor to nurse Mangas back to health on the pain of death, returned to fight. Eventually, “a Mexican approached Mangas’ camp under a truce flag. He said that some soldiers were nearby and wanted to talk peace” (197). While Mangas was warned that the settlers were trying to deceive him, he went anyway, as he thought they were somewhat honorable and weren’t going to seize a defenseless old man. However, he was proven wrong, as Captain Edmond Shirland had him captured. General Joseph West then ordered for soldiers to murder him, and before they did so they came up with an excuse: after some soldiers heated their bayonets and prodded them at Mangas, Mangas protested and was shot by the soldiers who guarded him. “A soldier took his scalp, another cut off his head and boiled the flesh away so that he could sell the skull to a phrenologist in the East. They dumped the headless body in a ditch. The official military report stated that Mangas was killed while attempting escape” (199). The American Indians, enraged, attacked, and the settlers responded by slaughtering them. Remarkably, an American official, Lieutenant Whitman, tried to prevent the Indians from being murdered by sending messengers to dissuade the killers. However, he was unsuccessful, for when he “reached the village it was still burning, and the ground was strewn with dead and mutilated women and children. ‘I found quite a number of women shot while asleep … The wounded who were unable to get away had their brains beaten out with clubs or stones, while some were shot full of arrows after having been mortally wounded by gunshot. The bodies were all stripped.’” (204).
A surgeon, C. B. Briesly, identified that two female corpses were raped before being shot, and an infant who was only ten months old was shot twice and mutilated (a leg was almost torn from it). All in all, 144 were slain. A survivor told Whitman that his wife and his children were brutally murdered in front of him, and the Aravaipa tribe eventually decided to rebuild. As for the murderers, they were never punished: Lieutenant Whitman tried to bring them to justice but failed. In Brown’s own words, “Whitman’s persistent efforts finally brought the Tucson killers to trial … The trial lasted for five days; the jury deliberated for nineteen minutes; the verdict was for release of the Tucson killers. As for Lieutenant Whitman, his unpopular defense of Apaches destroyed his military career. He survived three court-martials on ridiculous charges, and after several more years of service without promotion he resigned” (205). Cochise’s tribe was able to negotiate to avoid a total loss and further deception, and they left their land for another. That is, “By the springtime of 1875 most of the Apache bands were confined to reservations or had fled to Mexico … A forced peace lay over the deserts, peaks, and mesas of the Apache country. Ironically, its continuance depended largely upon the patient efforts of two white men who had won the regard of Apaches simply by accepting them as human beings rather than as bloodthirsty savages. Tom Jeffords the agnostic and John Clum of the Dutch Reformed Church were optimistic, but they were wise enough not to expect too much. For any white man in the Southwest who defended the rights of Apaches, the future was very uncertain” (217).
Brown proceeds to discuss Captain Jack, the leader of the Modoc tribe. The Modocs belonged to the California Indians, who were not aggressive. The Spaniards, seeing this, tried to annihilate their way of life: “The Spaniards gave them names, established missions for them, converted and debauched them … After the discovery of gold in 1848, white men from all over the world poured into California by the thousands, taking what they wanted from the submissive Indians, debasing those whom the Spaniards had not already debased, and then systematically exterminating whole populations now long forgotten. No one remembers the Chilulas, Chimarikos, Urebures, Nipewais, Alonas, or a hundred other bands whose bones have been sealed under a million miles of freeways, parking lots, and slabs of tract housing” (220). The Modocs went to war against the colonists after being exploited and harassed (they were willing to negotiate, but the settlers were unwilling to give any good land to them), and when Captain Jack tried to negotiate, American soldiers insulted him and the others, eventually leading to a brief skirmish which saw one dead and numerous wounded. Also, Captain Jack was later notified by Curly Headed Doctor/Boston Charley and eleven other Modocs that while he was negotiating, “soldiers came to his camp, several settlers had come to their camp and started shooting at them. These white men shot a baby out of its mother’s arms, killed an old woman, and wounded some of their men … Hooker Jim and his men decided to avenge the deaths of their people. Stopping briefly at isolated ranch houses along the way, they had killed twelve settlers” (225). After some fighting, when Captain Jack tried to negotiate a peaceful surrender, he was notified that the Indian law was dead and that the law of the whites reigned supreme: those who had murdered members of his tribe would never be punished. Captain Jack was later betrayed by Hooker Jim and some of his own people, and after a biased show trial (while the trial was going on, a gallows was being constructed), he was executed. “Captain Jack was hanged on October 3. On the night following the execution, his body was secretly disinterred, carried off to Yreka, and embalmed. A short time later it appeared in eastern cities as a carnival attraction, admission price ten cents. As for the surviving 153 men, women, and children, including Hooker Jim and his band, they were exiled to Indian Territory” (240).
Sometime after the Battle of the Washita (December 1868), “General Sheridan ordered all Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, and Comanches to come into Fort Cobb and surrender, or face extinction by being hunted down and killed by his Bluecoat soldiers” (243). A chief, Satanta (also known as White Bear), tried to negotiate a peace with other members of his tribe but were seized when they arrived. Custer, a general, then threatened to hang him and the others if the entire tribe wouldn’t surrender. And just like that, the tribe was forced to live on a reservation. They were wronged even further as the whites drove the buffalo to near extinction, as they shot them for sport (as well as an attempt to deprive the Indians of a vital food source). When Satanta and two other chiefs resisted, leading to the deaths of some settlers in the process, a biased jury composed of settlers ordered them to be hanged. However, the governor of Texas worried that their executions might lead to rebellion, so he sentenced them to life in prison instead. As Kicking Bird, an American Indian who wanted cooperation said, “‘My heart is a stone; there is no soft spot in it. 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.’” (262). After some more resistance, the leaders of the Kiowas and Comanches died, each following the other in quick succession: “Two days later, after drinking a cup of coffee in his lodge near the post, Kicking Bird died mysteriously. Three months later, at Fort Marion, after learning of the death of Kicking Bird, Mamanti also died suddenly … Three years later, wasting away in a prison hospital in Texas, Satanta threw himself from a high window to find release in death. That same year, Lone Wolf, racked by malarial fever, was permitted to return to Fort Sill, but he also was dead within a year” (271).
The American Indians, led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, engaged the settlers in warfare after they encroached their territory, the Black Hills. In the war of the Black Hills, Custer and the soldiers accompanying him were annihilated by the American Indians. As expected, “When the white men in the East heard of the Long Hairs’ [Custer’s] defeat, they called it a massacre and went crazy with anger. Because they could not punish Sitting Bull and the war chiefs, the Great Council in Washington decided to punish the Indians they could find-those who remained on the reservations and had taken no part in the fighting” (297). Therefore, “On August 15 the Great Council made a new law requiring the Indians to give up all rights to the Powder River country and the Black Hills. They did this without regard to the treaty of 1868, maintaining that the Indians had violated the treaty by going to war with the United States. This was difficult for the reservation Indians to understand because they had not attacked United States soldiers, nor had Sitting Bull’s followers attacked them until Custer sent Reno charging through the Sioux villages” (297-8). The United States Army took vengeance into their own hands, wantonly massacring any American Indian they came across. For instance, when the soldiers were trying to find Crazy Horse, they attacked a Cheyenne village: “They caught the Cheyennes in their lodges, killing many of them as they came awake” (306). Many of those who found their deaths in the slaughter were important warriors. Crazy Horse eventually tried to negotiate a surrender but was betrayed by the settlers and murdered in cold blood: “They walked past a soldier with a bayoneted rifle on his shoulder, and then they were standing in the doorway of a building. The windows were barred with iron, and he could see men behind the bars with chains on their legs. It was a trap for an animal, and Crazy Horse lunged away like a trapped animal … The scuffling went on for only a few seconds. Someone shouted a command, and then the soldier guard, Private William Gentles, thrust his bayonet deep into Crazy Horse’s abdomen” (312). After his death, his heart and bones were given to his parents. They buried his remains at Wounded Knee: “At a place known only to them they buried Crazy Horse somewhere near Chankpe Opi Wakpala, the creek called Wounded Knee” (313).
The treachery of the settlers against the American Indians is seen very well in the Lewis and Clark expedition: “In September 1805, when Lewis and Clark came down off the Rockies on their westward journey, the entire exploring party was half-famished and ill with dysentery-too weak to defend themselves. They were in the country of the Nez Perces, so named by French trappers, who observed some of these Indians wearing dentalium shells in their noses. Had the Nez Perces chosen to do so, they could have put an end to the Lewis and Clark expedition there on the banks of Clearwater River, and seized their wealth of horses” (316). Instead of doing so, they treated Lewis and Clark as honored guests and saved their lives. The Nez Perces were very friendly and reasonable towards the settlers, but the alliance was eventually broken off by the greed of the colonists. In 1855, Governor Isaac Stevens said that a clear boundary should be made to draw a distinction between Indian and American territory. Tuekakas (also known as Old Joseph), a chief, said that the earth was for everyone to share and that no person owned it. He eventually signed the treaty and warned the other tribes of the danger the colonists posed. Despite his carefulness, in 1863 the “thief treaty” was forced upon them, which stripped them of almost all of their land: “It took away the Wallowa Valley and three-fourths of the remainder of their land, leaving them only a small reservation in what is now Idaho. Old Joseph refused to attend the treaty signing, but Lawyer and several other chiefs-none of whom had ever lived in the Valley of Winding Waters-signed away their people’s lands” (317). Eventually, the avariciousness of the settlers became so intense they wanted every acre for themselves and demanded the Nez Perces to leave for the Lapwai reservation. Old Joseph refused and actively resisted. The soldiers responded by committing wanton murder by raiding villages while they were asleep: “Fifteen-year-old Kowtoliks was asleep when he heard the rattle of rifle fire … ‘The soldiers seemed shooting everywhere. Through tepees and wherever they saw Indians. I saw little children and men fall before bullets coming like rain.’” (324). Despite the immediate disadvantage, the Nez Perces were able to resist to a large degree, as the marksmanship of the members of the Nez Perces tribe were in fact superior to those of the soldiers sent to kill them. All in all, at that point in time “The warriors had killed thirty soldiers and wounded at least forty. But in Gibbon’s merciless dawn attack, eighty Nez Perces had died, more than two-thirds of them women and children, their bodies riddled with bullets, their heads smashed in by bootheels and gunstocks. ‘The air was heavy with sorrow,’ Yellow Wolf said. ‘Some soldiers acted with crazy minds.’” (325).
Chief Joseph tried to take his tribe somewhere else but was met by soldiers. Informed that the settlers wanted to negotiate, he was captured the moment he entered enemy territory. Fortunately for him, on the third day of his imprisonment he was released, for his tribe caught a soldier and threatened to execute him unless Chief Joseph was released. The same day, further reinforcements came for the settlers, and Chief Joseph knew it was all over. General Miles, the commander of enemy forces, promised to return them to a reservation if they surrendered. Upon hearing of it, Chief Joseph surrendered. However, contrary to their word, American soldiers, “Instead of conducting them to Lapwai, as Bear Coat Miles had promised … shipped them like cattle to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There, on a swampy bottomland, they were confined as prisoners of war. After almost a hundred died, they were transferred to a barren plain in the Indian Territory. As had happened to the Modocs, the Nez Perces sickened and died-of malaria and heartbreak” (329). Chief Joseph, utterly enraged at how his people were wronged, said that more was needed to better the situation of the Nez Perces than kind words, but found no receptive audience. In the end, he was sent back to Indian Territory, where he remained until 1885. At that point in time, 287 Nez Perces were still alive: “most of them too young to remember their previous life of freedom, or too old and sick and broken in spirit to threaten the mighty power of the United States … Chief Joseph and about 150 others were considered too dangerous to be penned up with other Nez Perces, whom they might influence. The government shipped them to Nespelem on the Colville Reservation in Washington, and there they lived out their lives in exile. When Joseph died on September 21, 1904, the agency physician reported the cause of death as ‘a broken heart.’” (330).
Later, multiple tribes, including the Cheyennes and the Poncas, were relocated. The Utes, the Rocky Mountain Indians, were able to create a temporary peace settlement with the settlers, but as usual, the settlers were very greedy and wanted all the land for themselves. Ouray the Arrow, the chief of the Utes, however, knew how to defend his interests to a large degree, as he could speak English and Spanish fluently. He also utilized the media (mostly newspapers) to his advantage. Eventually, the tribe settled for twenty-five thousand dollars of payment a year in exchange for four million acres. Also, “As a bonus, Ouray was to receive a salary of one thousand dollars a year for ten years, ‘or so long as he shall remain head chief of the Utes and at peace with the United States.’ Thus did Ouray become a part of the establishment, motivated to preserve the status quo” (371). Later there were cries for the Utes to leave altogether, and these calls of bigotry were supported only by fabricated stories and supposed (that is, fake) Indian crimes. One man, William Vickers, sank so low as to say that the Utes were the people responsible for the forest fires in the previous year (even though it is more likely for the settlers to have done it, seeing that they cared little for the land and frequently smoked carelessly). The Utes were eventually crushed by military force, and an American Indian named Douglas was sent to Leavenworth prison because a white woman, Arvilla Meeker, alleged that he had raped her (with no evidence). Brown writes that Ouray died before his people were finally banished, and the Utes were sent to land even the Mormons didn't want: “Ouray died before the Army herded his people together in August 1881 for the 350-mile march out of Colorado into Utah. Except for a small strip of territory along the southwest corner-where a small band of Southern Utes was allowed to live-Colorado was swept clean of Indians. Cheyenne and Arapaho, Kiowa and Comanche, Jicarilla and Ute-they had all known its mountains and plains, but now no trace of them remained but their names on the white man’s land” (389).
The Apache tribe too was eventually forced into a reservation, seeing that stalling forever was impossible. The leaders of the Apache (including a man named Geronimo) who resisted were portrayed by propaganda as demons, and when Geronimo surrendered, “The Great Father in Washington (Grover Cleveland), who believed all the lurid newspaper tales of Geronimo’s evil deeds, recommended that he be hanged. The counsel of men who knew better prevailed, and Geronimo and his surviving warriors were shipped to Fort Marion, Florida” (412). Once Geronimo saw his people, he found most of them dying, for they weren’t used to the warm and humid climate (they were used to dry land). Furthermore, Brown details that more than a hundred perished from consumption/tuberculosis. If that wasn’t bad enough, “The government took all their children away from them and sent them to the Indian school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and more than fifty of their children died there” (412). Geronimo, the last Apache chief, died in 1909. Brown then proceeds to discuss Sitting Bull, an American Indian who represented a threat to the government due to his leading the Sioux tribe. He knew that he couldn’t trust the settlers due to their betrayal, explicitly stating to the American representative, One Star Terry, that they are most untrustworthy. In his own words, “‘We have done nothing. It is all the people on your side that have started us to do all these depredations. We could not go anywhere else, and so we took refuge in this country…. I would like to know why you came here…. You come here to tell us lies, but we don’t want to hear them … Don’t you say two more words. Go back home where you came from…. The part of the country you gave me you ran me out of. I have now come here to stay with these people, and I intend to stay here.’” (418). Upon learning of his attitude, the Canadian government refused to leave him in peace. Sitting Bull, recognizing the precarious position, went to Washington. He became enraged at the arrogance of the whites, and he ranted, describing the various mistreatments and humiliations his people had to endure due to the depravity and baseness of the colonists. He then tried to negotiate but was completely denied by Senator John Logan, who said: “‘If it were not for the government you would be freezing and starving today in the mountains. I merely say these things to you to notify you that you cannot insult the people of the United States of America or its committees…. The government feeds and clothes and educates your children now and desires to teach you to become farmers, and to civilize you and make you as white men.’” (426).
Sitting Bull, in another attempt to preserve his people, went on tour, where he drew massive crowds: some people labeled him as the murderer of Custer. Regardless, he made a large amount of money, and he gave most of it to the poor. He tellingly stated that “he could not understand how white men could be so unmindful of their own poor. ‘The white man knows how to make everything,’ he said, ‘but he does not know how to distribute it.’” (427). As a treaty was being signed to strip the Sioux of the remaining lands (signifying the utter death of the American Indians), an American Indian named Kicking Bear told Sitting Bull that he heard a voice which informed him that the specters of Indians who had died would return and destroy the settlers once the survivors do the Ghost Dance. “Sitting Bull listened to all that Kicking Bear had to relate about the Messiah and the Ghost Dance. He did not believe it was possible for dead men to return and live again, but his people had heard of the Messiah and were fearful he would pass them by and let them disappear when the new resurrection came, unless they joined in the dancing. Sitting Bull had no objections to his people dancing the Ghost Dance, but he had heard that agents at some reservations were bringing soldiers in to stop the ceremonies … Kicking Bear replied that if the Indians wore the sacred garments of the Messiah-Ghost Shirts painted with magic symbols-no harm could come to them. Not even the bullets of the Bluecoats’ guns could penetrate a Ghost Shirt” (434). Sitting Bull relented, allowing his people to do so. The Messiah (named Wovoka) preached a belief of tolerance, stating that the Indians are not to harm anyone: all they have to do is perform the Ghost Dance. When the Ghost Dance finally commenced, the authorities became afraid of the Sioux, causing them to arrest Sitting Bull. The Sioux noticed them trying to do so, and they resisted. In the tumult, Sitting Bull was shot in the head. The Sioux didn't revolt, though, because they strongly believed in the Messiah’s promises. After a while, soldiers tried to disarm the American Indians of any potential weapons, and eventually commenced an episode of intense bloodshed by shooting Black Coyote, an American Indian who was deaf. Brown writes that the soldiers ruthlessly slaughtered with flying shrapnel the American Indians. When the massacre was over, “Big Foot [a prominent leader] and more than half of his people were dead or seriously wounded; 153 were known dead, but many of the wounded crawled away to die afterward. One estimate placed the final total of dead at very nearly three hundred of the original 350 men, women, and children. The soldiers lost twenty-five dead and thirty-nine wounded, most of them struck by their own bullets or shrapnel” (444). A blizzard then began blowing (causing the corpses of those who had been murdered to twist and bend into awkward angles), and the survivors were forced to take shelter in a shanty area. That is, “The wagonloads of wounded Sioux (four men and forty-seven women and children) reached Pine Ridge after dark. Because all the available barracks were filled with soldiers, they were left lying in the open wagons in the bitter cold while an inept Army officer searched for shelter. Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches taken out, and hay scattered over the rough flooring” (445). When the survivors entered the church, they saw a banner raised above the pulpit which read “PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN” (445).
Personal thoughts:
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown is a true classic. Not only does it clearly demonstrate the events which occurred, but it presents them with ample evidence (seen in quotes and first-hand accounts), along with a powerful, lively narrative, only to be further strengthened by the inclusion of terms belonging to American Indians. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee should be mandatory reading for all human beings, for it demonstrates that just because individuals may be technologically advanced doesn’t mean that they are humane, decent, and kind. Every human being should try to avoid bigotry, fanaticism, and callous actions: unfortunately, reality is often disappointing. Despite the horrendousness of many of the events in the books, the few individuals who both sympathized and tried to help the American Indians should be commemorated, for they tried to better a terrible situation despite all odds. I personally apologize for using the term “American Indians” for those who dislike it - while I acknowledge that there is a vast multitude of tribes, Brown frequently used the term himself, which made me feel it is okay for this situation. I highly recommend Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee to anyone interested in American history, American Indians, human nature, and conflict.
Get the book: