Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
This month we are looking at the Indians side of the history of the Wild West, making this weeks book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown. So let’s do this.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is, at it’s heart, a story of the conquest of the American West, as told by the survivors of that conquest. Not the conquerors...the ones who were conquered, and lived to tell the tale. It would be like finding scrolls from Samarkand, written by survivors after the sack by Genghis Kahn. But different. How so?
Well….Genghis Kahn never saw himself as the good guy. And when he decided a city needed to go, he literally destroyed every man, woman, and child, within the city, pulling down the walls behind him, and salting the earth with the blood of the dead.
And while no one with even the slightest knowledge of American History would argue that the destruction of the tribes wasn’t awful, America did see herself as The Good Guys, which means from a historical perspective at least, she made one very grave error: She left survivors to tell their side of the story. Which was then compiled into this book, by Dee Brown.
And it’s not easy reading. It’s not comfortable reading, even from the comparatively safe distance of 150 years after the events here in occurred. It should not be. How the tribes were treated is genuinely appalling, especially as when the events were fresh, American’s saw themselves as The Good Guys in this tale of tragedy on the western frontier. American’s saw themselves as a civilizing force, bringing peace and Jesus to the savages across the American West, uniting the nation under the Manifest Destiny that was President James K. Polk’s vision for her. And it could be argued that this IS what happened. But only if you assume the tribes were not civilized to begin with.
So let’s talk about that. Were the tribes civilized? Depends on your perspective. From the perspective of even most modern American’s, let alone those who fought in the Indian Wars, absolutely not. Even today, a frightening number of “educated” American’s only see the tribes as civilized from the perspective of the Rousseauian belief in the Noble Savage. So were they civilized...with civilized, from a dictionary.com definition, meaning:
1. having an advanced or humane culture, society
2. polite, well-bred, refined
3. of or relating to civilized people
4. easy to manage or control
Well, from a 19th century perspective, they were definitely not 1, 2, or 3. But 4...beat a person enough, and they become very easy to control.
And even today, when Hollywood depicts, for example, Cheyenne culture, where the dog soldiers in Longmire are piercing their breasts to hang in the sun to inspire visions...this is to show their Noble Savagery, not their civility. But this is because the god they are sacrificing themselves to is not the Christian God, like the flagellants in the 14th century, who beat themselves in a ritual response to the black plague. The flagellants did it to feel closer to their god. But American’s did not grant that same grace to the Cheyenne, whose gods were different than America’s own. But the argument can absolutely be made that when one reaches the point of self-mortification as part of religious ceremonies, peak civilization has been obtained.
I mentioned the concept of the Noble Savage in last weeks review, but what is it? In the 18th and early 19th centuries, political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, and several other authors, including Francois Rene de Chateaubriand and James Fenimore Cooper...you know, the guy who wrote The Last of the Mohicans...and Herman Melville...who wrote Moby Dick….created this romanticized ideal of uncivilized man, who symbolizes the innate goodness of one not exposed to the corrupting influences of civilization. Basically, if we had NEVER gone west, the tribes would have lived in peace forever. Which is provably false. They would have lived in peace with the White American’s, who were clamoring for the gold in them thar hills. But the tribes would have continued to make war against each other. A little more on that in a bit.
But America figured, once we’d corrupted them with contact, then we should really go all the way, and bring them into Gods fold.
So the first chapter of this book provides an incredibly brief overview of the conquest of the five civilized tribes and the East Coast Natives in general, before going into the conquest of the western tribes, which encompasses the entire rest of the book, and includes recorded testimony from the tribes. And it’s quite clever how it’s laid out, as each chapter starts with a very brief timeline of world events, so that you get a sense of how none of this happened in a vacuum.
So when he moves to the west, he starts in 1860, with the Long Walk of the Navahos, who were historically located in just about the four corners area, so where UT, NM, AZ, and CO meet. They ended up in just about the same place, but getting there took 8 years of being shuffled back and forth. I know in last weeks review, I had said something about how the Comanche would assume perfidy on the part of all whites if one white person violated the treaty. Well, Brown’s book proves that knife cuts both ways, as the Navajo had historically gotten along quite well with American’s. Until a few Navajo, well for lack of a better metaphor, went off the reservation. And the American’s assumed all Navajo were doing the same.
And there is story after story to this effect in this book. And almost all of them started with a treaty being set in place, and then America violates that treaty. And when the tribes fought back, chaos and death was rained down upon them. Which is heartbreaking to read about.
I mean, it’s not ALL doom and gloom, and Brown does a masterful job weaving in the tales of non-perfidious white people, people who the tribes trusted because individuals EARNED that trust, and never broke it once given. He even included what happened to soldiers who tried to do right by the tribes, and were punished professionally for not siding with their fellow white man.
This is not a pretty story. History rarely is. Especially history of conquest and warfare, which this was. He absolutely includes the history where members of one tribe would act as scouts for the US Army, only to have the Army turn on their scouts once they were no longer needed and force them onto reservations also. Because as much as historical revisionists like to pretend that all the tribes were one big, kum ba ya happy family, they were not. Each tribe was unique unto itself, and saw other tribes as anywhere from friendly, to neutral, to sworn enemies. Very much like the history of Europe and China...and everywhere else. Because, as it turns out, the Native Americans are just as human as the rest of us.
But just as important as what is said, is what is NOT said. He includes stories of tribal leaders who would be invited to Washington DC to meet with Congressional leaders and whoever the sitting president happened to be, and to a man, they would come back to the tribes and preach peace, and advise their people to go to the reservations. Why would that be? Well, the implication in the book, is that these leaders had turned on their own.
In fact, invariably these leaders were seen as traitors to their own kind. One chief, I think it was from the Nez Perce tribe, although I could be misremembering, refused to go to DC, remarking almost exactly that, that when his brother had gone, he’d returned fat and in the White Man’s camp. Here’s the thing. The introductory notes of what’s going on in the world at the beginning of each chapter, includes census update information at the ten year marks, so 1860, the US population was 31,443,321. By 1870 the US population was 38,558,371. By 1880, it was 50,155,783. By 1890, when the Battle of Wounded Knee occurred, the US population was 62,622,250. So it had effectively doubled in 30 years. And the vast majority of that population was east of the Mississippi.
So when Congress and the President invited tribal leaders to Washington DC to meet with them, it was more of an object lesson: look what numbers we can bring to bear on the war if you insist on having it. And since the trains would stop in all the major metro areas between Indian country and the Nations capital, this unspoken message was undoubtedly received by the chiefs, who would come to understand that capitulation was the only means by which they might be able to save their people. What an effective propaganda campaign against the Native Chiefs, to see the swarms of locust who were waiting to flood their territory.
This book was sad to read, to see the stories from the perspective of those who survived the tragedies. The very last page of the book...before getting into the works cited and indices, includes a picture of Chief Red Cloud, with a heartrending quote from him. “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.”
Historically, American’s like to see themselves as the good guys. ALL peoples do. And that silent object lesson absorbed by the chiefs on their cross country journey’s to Washington DC to meet with the Great Father in the heart of American power, accomplished more than getting the major leaders to quietly concede. It allowed for a damn near bloodless war of attrition to be fought. Not entirely bloodless. The tribes did NOT go gentle into that good night. They raged a lot against the dying light. But had they continued to rage, we would not now have ANY tribes left to remind us all of our blood soaked past.
Now, I am not making excuses for the pioneers of America. You can’t change history, you can’t go back in time and say hey...what if you just...let the tribes continue to hunt, as long as they promise not to rip up the farmers crops? Why don’t we just grant the tribes citizenship and protection under American law….which did happen. In 1924. AFTER American’s had taken what they wanted. It just...is what it is. Because ultimately, the history of the American west is a story of the battle for resources. The tribes had it. American’s wanted it. With millions amassing east of the Mississippi, the only way to ensure the survival of ANY of the native tribes, was to guarantee them smaller segments of land on reservations. And then, because our congress critters have always been utterly faithless, and absolute shit at ensuring equal protection under the law, break those promises and oaths when more land was needed for the settlers heading west.
The history of conquest is never pretty. But sometimes, someone survives to tell the other side of the story.
