Book Review: Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

By Dee Brown, 1970, ~450 pages. I don't know Dee's ethnic makeup, but I'd guess that he's at least part American Indian. He's obviously done his homework in preparing this book, but the greatest strength of the book is its non-scholarly style. Brown makes a conscious effort to present this with plenty of endnotes and references but without making the book sound like a Ph.D. thesis. In fact, the writing style is essentially storytelling, an Indian art itself. In the introduction he asks the audience (white Americans) to read this book "looking East" rather than looking West as most American books about the Indian Wars are written. He does a fantastic job at maintaining that perspective, using Indian as often as Christian names for whites. The book never goes into great depth about white motives for conquest, so the reader may be just as mystified as the Indians were as to why the whites need so much land. What was told the Indians by whites is quoted, but not many white sources meant for white consumption are cited.

I admit that Bury My Heart has me thinking. What would a righteous white do in this day and age? Anything? I mean, my ancestors never killed an Indian, and never took land from them. Only one of my ancestral families has been in the US long enough to do anything like that; the rest were 20th century immigrants. And that last branch of the family, at least in recent memory, is quite friendly with the Passamaquodies who live a few miles away from the family home near Eastport, Maine. My uncle taught school on the reservation and has had many Indian friends, we often shop on the reservation when we visit, and though the Passamaquody tribe is poor, so is everyone in Eastport. Growing up my Mom was considered to be wealthy -- her (Lebanese) father was a plumber and washing-machine salesman!

However, though my forefathers may not have been Yankees, I certainly am a white, and certainly am quite priveleged, (though that's because of my father and (Jewish) grandfather's brains and hard work, not my race.) And Indians today are definitely underprivileged. I guess I'd say it's not the government's responsibility to make amends unless the American people show a clear desire to do so. I'd rather see private citizens making the difference, since Westward expansion was empowered and driven by private citizens and interests. The government merely allowed it and supported it. Local governments - towns and counties - would be the ideal body to begin righting some of the wrongs. But what can they do? All pack up, move into a little apartment and give the rest of the town to the local tribe? Appraise the unimproved value of the entire place and pay for it? If you did that properly, including compounded interest, it would be a lot of $$$. Of course, you could ignore inflation, and do it 1878 dollars, but that has smacks of dishonesty.

Another way to wash the slate clean would be to let the Indian tribes themselves decide what our compensation should be. Not like a big referendum, I'd say, but a judicial council of elders, mostly Indians, who would in all likelihood be quite just, since they'd try hard to avoid creating a backlash. Hmmmm... I'd say the only way to do that politically would be state-by-state referenda on whether to allow an Indian-elder-decided solution. But what are they going to say? Increased handouts? Land appropriations? It's not easy...

I personally think American citizenship should be extended to all the Original Americans, but that has to be accompanied by a big payout, since losing their current status I think would end a lot of the handouts.

PLEASE email me some comments that I can post here. This could potentially be a real issue in the next century, but it won't be unless we really discuss it and form coherent opinions. So read some books, or give me your perspective from a different ethnic background and part of the country!