#Classic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Finished: 10.11.2024
Genre: nonfiction
Rating: B
#NovFicNov24
Good News: It is time to confront this book…I’ve been avoiding. Also in chapter 8…Glad to hear some good news. Donehogawa was and educated Iroquois, Commisioner of Indian Affairs appointed by President Grant…finally leaves civil service and makes a fortune New York in that Gilded Age of Finance! #Bravo
Bad News: Just awful. Pages of attempts of peace with the white men and Indians. Again and again broken promises, vengeful soldiers who don’t listen to orders. Soldiers are very “trigger happy”…many friendly indians killed by mistake. Rhetoric like “…I think a little powder and lead is the best food for them”. The destruction of Native American peoples, cultures, and languages has been characterized as genocide.
Good News: People should read how the Indians were “descimated” for land (Colorad0) in gory details, the well planned massacre at Sand Creek (pg 87 -91). I have no stomach for his but I will finish the book and NOT skim. Face the truth., don’t look away…you will not see this in the history books.
Personal: These chapters are one sad story after another…so depressing.
Conclusion: Years of resistance to change, loss of the Indian way of life and Manifest Destiny…the idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America. Many lives were loss on both Indian and white men’s sides. It feels like this piece of history was inevitable but it still makes for difficult reading.
#FinallyFinishedTheBook
NancyElin.blog 
This book was one of those game changers for me when I read it about 30 yrs ago & realised the same thing happened in Australia. As the white settlers invaded & settled the land that belonged to someone else, conflict was inevitable. But the view of the white colonisers that they were somehow superior than the native inhabitants meant they could, and did, commit heinous crimes against humanity to get what they wanted. Very few could understand that the native populations were simply defending their own country against an invader who came in and completely destroyed their way of life.
Ooops, sorry, I’m obviously having a soapbox kind of day!!
My “Australian” gamechanger was The Passion of Private White by Don Watson. It did not describe the past injustices…but the present ones incured on the native inhabitants. …Neville White tries so hard to help the people in the Donydji homeland …and it feels as if it is a sisyphean endeavour .... a task as seemingly endless and futile…you keep doing it but it never gets done. – There was a continuing struggle with bureauacy to get supplies/teachers/tools to help Donydji. But Neville never gave uo hope. The book was longlisted for Australian Political Book of 2023…and it should have won!
Hi Nancy,
I read that book in High School. I remember being so outraged at the injustice and unmitigated ignorance. I’m glad I read it then, because I don’t think I could handle reading it today. It is a good book but a hard bit of history to acknowledge.
Hope you are well, Greye and I are trying to process what is happening in the US . I am not optimistic about the future. We, and all of our social circle have decided to forego any visits to the US for a while.
Be well and keep writing. I enjoy your reviews and I am inspired by your selections!
Cheers Mary Lee and Duckie
You don’t have to go to USA…they( friends/relations) will all we be coming to you! If the House does go to the Republicans…then USA is now living in a dictatorship (WH, House, Senate, SCOTUS and new federal judges to be appointed by Trump…and if the Supreme Court needs new judges …the right wing could influence US policy until 2045!). On a lighter note…thanks for reading the reviews. I’m trying to line up some good books for 2025.