Amazon.com
First published in 1970, this extraordinary book changed the way Americans think about the original inhabitants of their country. Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos in 1860 and ending 30 years later with the massacre of Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, it tells how the American Indians lost their land and lives to a dynamically expanding white society. During these three decades, America's population doubled from 31 million to 62 million. Again and again, promises made to the Indians fell victim to the ruthlessness and greed of settlers pushing westward to make new lives. The Indians were herded off their ancestral lands into ever-shrinking reservations, and were starved and killed if they resisted. It is a truism that "history is written by the victors"; for the first time, this book described the opening of the West from the Indians' viewpoint. Accustomed to stereotypes of Indians as red savages, white Americans were shocked to read the reasoned eloquence of Indian leaders and learn of the bravery with which they and their peoples endured suffering. With meticulous research and in measured language overlaying brutal narrative, Dee Brown focused attention on a national disgrace. Still controversial but with many of its premises now accepted, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee has sold 5 million copies around the world. Thirty years after it first broke onto the national conscience, it has lost none of its importance or emotional impact. --John Stevenson
Book Description
Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking....Impossible to put down"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold almost four million copies and has been translated into seventeen languages. For this elegant thirtieth-anniversary edition -- published in both hardcover and paperback -- Brown has contributed an incisive new preface.Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.
Customer Reviews:
BURY MY HEART ! (the truth of how our government "won" the west).......2007-10-10
I first read Dee Brown's book, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (1970) as a college assignment. It changed the way I looked at America/our country, America/our history, and America/our land. The book is subtitled "An Indian History Of The American West", and focuses on the period of 1860 to 1890. This was after "The Trail Of Tears" of the 1830s, when the Cherokee, Choctaw, and other Indian nations were forced against their will to evacuate the eastern United States and move west. The book covers the Apaches, the Navajo, the Cheyenne, the Nez Percez, and the Sioux, among others. The wars, the injustices, and the sad fate of men, women, and children who died trying to pack up and move their lives yet once again. Brown doesn't portray the Indians as saints, either, but only as people with limited resources who, too many times, trusted the promises of a government that would, time and time again, go back on it's word, and forcibly humiliate them. Brown also points out that sometimes the Indians overreacted by attacking innocent non-military settlements. Mostly the book is a concise account of the real Manifest Destiny story, and it expels the myths of the old American History 101 textbook, and the romantic Hollywood cowboy/injun-fighter version of our history. It's a tragic and cruel story, really. It's the true story of the progress of one generation of people at the expense of a civilization. Unfortunately that progress was paved with broken promises, injustice, and lives forever lost.
A Wake-up Call for Americans .......2007-09-05
I just (July 2007) acquired my new copy coming from Amazon. I lost my old copy in 1995. I was not naive about politics and government in 1995. Any scintillas of trust in politics and government,are now gone for even more different reasons. This book seems to keep me awake and keeps my ears wider open to what can happen in this country and this world. It is not just about the shameful and bloody acts in our westward expansion. The word "treaty" from these times is a joke. I can also see more about international expansions. America makes large wrongs, as do other countries do to their own people in history. My heart feels buried because Americans, we, made such innumerable, horrendous and cruel acts. This book remains to me as a great "jolt" to my consciousness. He put together a great example of what America did do to the Native American Peoples. Look at the status of the Native American Peoples who are left today.
Original Eye-Opener.......2007-08-03
This book was and contines to be a wake-up call to the asleep teaching of American History. Especially that of Native Americans and most notably our utter ignorance of our history with Latin America.
A great book.......2007-07-01
Bury my heart at wounded knee is a oustanding account of native american history. Very informative and captivating, piquing my interest in native american's. The words tell of a people heroic,caring,hospitable, and understanding almost pushed to the point of annihilation at the hands of conquistadors,whites and others. Sadness,anger,hate, and sympathy are just some of the feelings brought out by reading this book. If you want an unflinching account of native american history this a great place to start.
bury my heart at wounded knee.......2007-06-27
I was told to read this book as i like to read about american history. this is one of the best book i have read. dee brown really did a lot of backgroud work on it .
Book Description
BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE is an eloquent, fully-documented account of the systematic destruction of American Indians during the second half of the 19th century.
Using council records, autobiographies and other firsthand descriptions, Dee Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux and Cheyenne to tell us about the battles, massacres and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. Sadly, this is how the west was really won.
"Fascinating and painful." (The Wall Street Journal)
"Strongly and ardently written." (The New Yorker)
Customer Reviews:
Terrible!.......2005-10-10
"BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE" was assigned as my 9th grade Honors U.S. History II summer reading assignment. My class was told that it would help to lead us into this chapter in our history class. The first day of school, the teacher asked us how the book was coming along and found out firsthand just how open a class we are. We all hated it. It was terrible! Every chapter tells a different tribe's story, but it was all the same. This book was so repetitive. There is a fight, there is a treaty, the whites break the treaty, there is another fight, and the Indians endure a terrible massacre. I was saddened to read about the poor Indians, but it got a little old after the first 5 times or so. Many of the people in my class are having so much trouble getting through the book, that they are either skimming through the book and risking the bad grade, or are buying the summary of each chapter off of a website. The review on the front of the book reads, "...Impossible to put down." I found this true because after around 20 pages of reading this book, I would fall asleep with the book in my hand. If you are planning to read this book, please understand how repetitive it is and rethink your decision.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.......2003-05-12
Absolutely one of the most thought provoking books I have read. I enjoyed this book so much I did not want to put it down nor have it end.
The Native American's Perspective.......2000-06-21
This book is essentially a collection of short narrative about the struggles of various Native American cultures in what became the United States. The book is written from the perspective of the Native Americans, and thus has a different emphasis than many of today's high school U.S. History texts (at least not the same emphasis as mine had). I really enjoyed the reading. It was new to hear the side of the story we almost never consider. I would recommend this book to anyone.
The worst "history" of the Indian Wars ever written........1999-05-24
Apparently Dee Brown thought the sufferings of 19th-century American Indians weren't ghastly enough to impress hippie readers back in the Age of Aquarius, so he proceeds to fake things. Brown doesn't merely "slant" things to a degree that amounts to a hallucinatory experience, but makes things up outright. Anxious to make G.A. Custer look bad for the Washita attack, he invents casualty figures, claiming that Custer killed 103 Cheyennes, only eleven of whom were men! (As anthropologist John Greenway observed, massacres of Indians, in the neononsense of Brown and his associates, are not indiscriminate, but rigorously discriminate, consisting solely of women and children.) Brown either covers up Indian atrocities (particularly those of the Apaches) or tries to lie his way out of them by providing some bogus excuse; according to him, the Sioux's Minnesota massacre of some 400 white settlers one fine day in 1862 simply never happened.
He can't even get the small parts right, even depicting Custer's men as carrying sabers at the Little Bighorn. One can find out nothing about the American Indians of the West from reading Brown's book, perhaps because he's not really interested in them save as victims for his guilt-stricken white readership.
As for Brown's claim that his book is an "Indian history," based on Indian accounts gathered at treaty councils or immured in obscure government documents, this is but another falsehood. He could have written the thing in two weeks, ripping off standard books in print -- including Custer's memoir "My Life on the Plains"! No original research was involved.
This is a MUST read book!.......1999-03-27
As I read this book of unimaginable hardship for the American Indians, my very soul was pained. For it offers the most truthful history of the removal of the Indians from THEIR homeland I have ever read. My heart aches with the knowledge that my anscestors lived both sides of the war mentioned in this book. My blood is thick with Irish and Cherokee...ironic, isn't it? I, as so many others I am sure, feel torn by the horror that the first Americans had to endure at the hands of those who set up colonies here. This is the first book I have read that tells the story from the view of the Natives instead of the white man. I am proud of my Native American heritage, therefore, I feel that this book is of ultimate importance to those of us who yearn for understanding. While I am hurt and somewhat angered by the history, it is imperitive that I learn both sides of this story. Unfortunately, the only history offered in school is one-sided, thus, imperfect. Let us all long to hear the songs of the first true Americans...The Native American Indians. When you have read this book in its entirety, your understanding will be opened. If we had only listened to "those savages" our respect for the land would be great and our natural resources wouldn't be at risk today. Be prepared to feel the emotions of a multitude; raped, murdered, starved, enslaved and stripped of dignity. This book is definitely one that should hold a prestigious place in every library in America!
Book Description
Through the interpretive lens of colonial theory, Jeffrey Ostler presents an original analysis of the tumultuous relationship between the Plains Sioux and the United States in the 1800s. He provides novel insights on well-known aspects of the Sioux story, such as the Oregon Trail, the deaths of "Crazy Horse" and "Sitting Bull", and the Ghost Dance, and offers an in-depth look at many lesser-known facets of Sioux history and culture. Paying close attention to Sioux perspectives of their history, the book demonstrates how the Sioux creatively responded to the challenges of U.S. expansion and domination, revealing simultaneously how U.S. power increasingly limited the autonomy of their communities as the century came to a close. Ostler's innovative analysis of the Plains Sioux culminates in a compelling reinterpretation of the events that led to the Wounded Knee massacre of December 29, 1890. History Department Head at the University of Oregon, Associate Professor Jeffrey Ostler has held honors such as the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and has published articles in Western Historical Quarterly, Great Plains Quarterly, and Pacific Historical Review.
Average customer rating:
- Power Photographs and Message -- Introduction Troubling
- Moving, visual testimony of the long forced march
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On the Trail to Wounded Knee: The Big Foot Memorial Ride
Guy Le Querrec
Manufacturer: The Lyons Press
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Book Description
A moving photographic essay documenting the Lakota Sioux's retracing of their doomed ancestors' trail to Wounded Knee.
Customer Reviews:
Power Photographs and Message -- Introduction Troubling.......2005-01-01
BEWARE THE INTRODUCTION
I'm very torn on this review, as the criminal tragedy at Wounded Knee does indeed require national awareness and attonement. Photographer LeQuerrec has compiled an exceedingly moving testimony to the tragedy, with images that speak more eloquently than any words. Since I was 13 and began my own journey learning of the shameful acts against the native peoples during this county's rapid expansion - I've felt obligated to know and do whatever part I could take in attonement.
That said - the introduction to the book by Jim Harrison took me aback. While emotionally trying to make the point that most of mainstream America is relatively ignorant of the negative aspects of its past (true), and by the nature of our capitalist society there is an often obscene gap between wealth and poverty in this country (true), Harrison somehow shifts from a call to responsibility to a screed against the US in general. We have our faults, and have done evil things as a people -- but artifically transfering this to modern US foreign policy (as Harrison does - lamenting US treatment of China and Cuba) in my opinion denegrates the message of Wounded Knee. Mao-ist China and Castro Cuba are not the same thing as 19th century continental expansion and colonialism, and to draw China and Cuba into the discussion (as Harrison does in the introduction) merely shows some sense of warped idealistic views of Marxist societies. My family suffered 40 years under marxist rule in the DDR - so I have an obvious differing view from the author on the "idyllic" nature of communist countries. Also, the five letter description Harrison uses in the introduction to describe the Statue of Liberty (shock value?) is over the top and beneath what this book and its message should be about.
In fairness, Harrison's quote from Bertold Brecht "whom you would destroy, you first portray as savage" is an excellent point in introducing Wounded Knee and its place in our history. Maybe I wasn't expecting to be hit quite so hard. I'm torn with wanting to rip the intro out of the book -- or keep reading it as a needed "kick."
Moving, visual testimony of the long forced march.......2002-10-07
Guy Le Querrec's On The Trail To Wounded Knee: The Big Foot Memorial Ride is an impressive photographic memorial of one of the most brutal and tragic massacres of Native Americans in recorded American history. In 1990, the one hundredth anniversary of the long journey and eventual slaughter of Chief Big Foot and most of his tribe, members of the Sioux nation retraced the journey in honor of those who suffered and died. Photographer Guy Le Querrec followed the trail with them, and captured these powerful black-and-white images. Vignettes and quotes from history are interspersed with this moving, visual testimony of the long forced march that has since become a symbol of American genocide.
Average customer rating:
- Puts certain American icons into a different light
- Definitely an eye opener!
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Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
Dee Brown
Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
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Binding: Paperback
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Customer Reviews:
Puts certain American icons into a different light.......2005-09-14
I read this book quite a few years ago, but up until that time I looked at George Armstrong Custer as an American hero. After reading this book I realized what he really was...a mass murderer!
This book will break your heart, and possibly bring you to tears, but it is a great read. It tells the history we were all taught in school from the other side, the side no one wanted us to know as children. Read this book and you'll agree with me. True american history, with no punches pulled.
Definitely an eye opener!.......1999-06-25
I'm glad that I read this book. I have never read about history from this point of view. It was moving! This version was written for young adults, and I feel that students should be required to read this at least in high school. Many people will be moved to tears and heartbroken as I was.
Book Description
In eight chapters that begin in 1860 and end in 1890, accompanied by illustrations, photographs-some published for the first time-and maps, find the story of the demise of the Plains Indians: proud, strong, and resourceful, the very image of the American West. Chapter by chapter see how their ancient culture was decimated in a single generation, through three decades of bitter warfare. Between the end of the Civil War and the white man's final conquest of the frontier, U.S. Army soldiers and Indians collided again and again, in the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Washita, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and in other fierce chases, retreats, and clashes, culminating in the devastating massacre of Big Foot's village at Wounded Knee in December 1890. This eloquent story is written by Herman Viola, a scholar and advocate of the American Indian who has been entrusted with the story by Native American scholars.
Book Description
The story of the last deaths in the American Indian wars and their far-reaching ramifications
The massacre of at least 150 Indians by the U.S. Army along Wounded Knee Creek in the Lakota reservation on December 29, 1890 generally is considered the closing salvo in America's Indian Wars. But as Roger L. Di Silvestro reveals in startling detail, the fight was hardly over. Two tragic events in the weeks immediately following would reignite the conflict and forever color its legacy.
In the Shadow of Wounded Knee is the first book to chronicle the senseless killings that riveted the country in 1891: the assassination of Lieutenant Edward Casey by the young Brulé Lakota warrior Plenty Horses, and the ambush of Few Tails and two other Indians by rancher Pete Culbertsons and his brothers. According to frontier justice of the day, Plenty Horses would have been summarily hanged and the Culbertsons would never have been tried. Yet in the aftermath of Wounded Knee--a slaughter that had horrified politicians, soldiers, and citizens alike--the trial of Plenty Horses made headlines nationwide as a cause célèbre. Soon prosecutors faced a quandary: if Plenty Horses were convicted, then the Army itself would have to be held accountable for its actions at Wounded Knee. How Plenty Horses--a "civilized" Indian who was educated in a school back east--was ultimately exonerated, and the Culbertsons were forced to stand trial, forms a fascinating closing chapter in the Indian Wars and in the last days of the Old West.
Customer Reviews:
Enlightening tale from a fascinating period in American history........2006-02-10
"In the Shadow of Wounded Knee" is a deftly written account of several trials that served as an epilogue to the better-known events of Wounded Knee. DiSilvestro does an excellent job of setting the stage for the trial of Plenty Horses, a Lakota Indian accused of murdering Edward Casey, the last white soldier killed in the Indian Wars, and a secondary trial in which several low-life cattlemen were accused of killing a well-known and well-liked Indian. DiSilvestro describes the sad state of affairs that led to the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee, and how reaction to the massacre colored, in particular, the trial of Plenty Horses. DiSilvestro provides a lively account of the uneasy state of affairs between whites and Indians, the specific events leading the two murder cases, the trials, and their aftermath. The influence of politics on both trials says a great deal about that time in history, but also left me thinking more about how politics still influences justice (think of the current debate about our obligations to prisoners in the war on terror). "In the Shadow of Wounded Knee" is a fluid, thought-provoking, even-handed treatment of a fascinating topic that continues to be of great relevance.
Another tiny piece of the intricate tapestry that is American history.......2006-01-07
The more you read about American history the more you come to realize the significance that so many obscure and long forgotten events had on the history of our nation. I have read about a great many such events over the past few years and this was a major reason that I was drawn to Roger DiSilvestro's new book "In The Shadow Of Wounded Knee". Certainly I had read about the tragic events that had taken place at Wounded Knee SD in that last week of December 1890. But I was totally clueless about the subsequent assassination of Lt. Edward Casey
by a young Lakota warrier known as Plenty Horses and of the ambush and cold-blooded killing just days later of a middle-aged Lakota Indian known as Few Tails by three brothers named Culbertson. Both Plenty Horses and the Culbertson brothers would be accused of murder and be forced to stand trial. The outcomes of these trials were assumed to be a foregone conclusion but events were rapidly unfolding that had the potential to alter the outcomes of one or both of these trials.
There was much at stake for both the Lakota Indians and for the newly arrived ranchers and settlers.
Understanding just what was going on in the Dakotas during these troubled times would be extremely difficult without an understanding of the history of relations between the U.S. government and the Indian nations. In the first four chapters of "In The Shadow Of Wounded Knee" Roger DiSilvestro does a superb job of getting the reader up to speed on this checkered history. And so when these two unfortunate killings occur in January 1891 the reader is abundantly aware of the context in which this violence took place. At the same time you will be much more likely to understand the highly charged climate that surrounded each of these trials. If you are an avid reader of history like I am then "In The Shadow of Wounded Knee" will give you another little piece of the puzzle that will help you to understand just what was going on in the Plains as hostilities between the U.S. Army and the Indian nations were beginning to wind down. Clearly most Indian leaders could see the handwriting on the wall. "In The Shadow of Wounded Knee" is extremely well researched and very well written. My kudos to Roger DiSilvestro for a job well done.
Highly Recommended.
Good, solid insight into overlooked chapter of 1890 Pine Ridge Campaign.......2005-12-27
The author is to be commended for exploring in the depth and detail that only a book can provide, an incident receiving heretofore scant attention in previous histories of this campaign. Robert Utley's 1960s "American Heritage" article on Plenty Horses and Casey has stood as the best source on Casey's death, until now. As with many such books, the author spends a great deal of time with historical background and context, which, if you are a Sioux Wars student, you may already be familiar with in one form or another. To his credit, these sections are well-written and engaging as well as revealing of some new insight. Clearly, he has done his homework.
The best part of the book lies in the courtroom drama that unfolded when Plenty Horses was put on trial for the killing of Lt. Casey (see background description provided by Amazon) that was held in eastern South Dakota at Sioux Falls, far removed from the scene of conflict. The excitement that pervaded the town is related quite well through the use of contemporary newspaper quotes. The first trial ended in a hung jury; the second trial produced his acquital. The author fully explores how it was established that the U.S. military and the Lakota were at war and therefore the killing of Casey by Plenty Horses was not a murder but a legitimate wartime killing. The defense attorneys for Plenty Horses built a case resting on a number of issues proving that a wartime climate prevailed which impacted on the way Plenty Horses reacted to Lt. Casey's close approach to the the Lakota camp that resulted in his being shot: the large troop deployments, the fights at Wounded Knee and Drexel Mission that preceded the Casey killing, the issuance of army rations rather than Indian Bureau rations to those Lakota who surrendered and the testimony of Captain Frank Baldwin, close underling of none other than General Nelson Miles, who expressed Miles' opinion as to the nature of state of war prevailing at that time. The author makes clear and cites evidence concerning the military's fear that if Plenty Horsees was convivted of murder, the door might have been opened to legally question the nature of the numerous Lakota deaths that occured as a result of Wounded Knee, especially the number of women and children killed.
In the end, Plenty Horses escaped capital punishment, returned to the reservation where he lived until the 1930s. As for Wounded Knee itself, the author wisely states that "the truth of what happened at Wounded Knee is beyond reach."
In the Shadow of Wounded Knee.......2005-12-06
Well, of course I give this book five stars. I wrote it. It offers a review of the historical events that led up to the trial of Plenty Horses for shooting an Army lieutenant in the back of the head shortly after the Wounded Knee shoot out. In writing the book, I wanted to cover an incident that marked the end of the Indian Wars but that had scarcely been treated to more than a footnote in most books covering those conflicts. I also tried to show the West as it truly was, which is to say that I was interested in showing how reality differed from the myth of the West that underlies so much of our nation's self identity. I also wanted to give readers a dramatic story that would hold their interest and compete well against other activities. I wish the best of reading experiences to those who do pick up the book.
Customer Reviews:
An Excellent Account of American Native History!!!!.......2007-07-12
The Indians but I call them American Natives were here in America before anybody else. Sadly, the fate of the American Natives is that there are fewer than them around. Imagine that only a couple hundred years ago, there were millions of proud American Natives with a rich culture. The author, Dee Brown, constructs a very well researched book about the history of American Natives or Indians of the American West. Much of the Americas were home to the natives whether it is America, Canada, Central, and South Americas. The fate of the American Natives in history is crucial to understanding our own fate. The book has several pictures of well-known American Natives who helped change the fate of our history like Geronimo, Pocahontas, etc.
Product Description
"The powerful story that haunts the nation"
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