Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: Native American Strength

Introduction to Dee Brown's Landmark History

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown has become a classic of American historical literature because it was the first major work to tell the story of the Battle of Wounded Knee — and the broader conquest of Native lands — from the Native American perspective. The book skillfully weaves Native poetry, folklore, and songs into its narrative, illuminating what Native Americans endured as white settlers took over their lands and upended their lives. It stands as a testament to their strength, character, and pain.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a complex and comprehensive history of Native Americans told from their own point of view, rather than from the perspective of white historians. Brown's writing style engrosses the reader, though the book's length — over 500 pages — may put some readers off. Beyond bare history, Brown incorporates Native American writings, folklore, and myths that deepen the work's authenticity. Throughout, he illustrates how Native American tribes were thriving and vital societies that lived off the land and understood the complex natural world and humanity's interaction with it. One of the book's central themes is the continual deception practiced by white settlers and government officials, and Brown's accounts of forced relocation to reservations demonstrate this deception clearly. The setting is North America — primarily the American West, where most relocations and confrontations between white settlers and Native peoples took place.

The Wounded Knee Massacre and Its Symbolism

The book's title refers to an infamous confrontation in 1890 in South Dakota. The U.S. Army considered the Native Americans gathering at Wounded Knee Creek a threat, intercepted them, and — after a shot was fired — responded with devastating force against largely innocent people. As historian Francis Paul Prucha documents, "Indians were shot down by the soldiers without discrimination of age or sex. A total of 146 Indians were buried on the battlefield, 84 men and boys, 44 women, and 18 children, many of them frozen in distraught postures by the blizzard that swept down upon the scene after the massacre" (Prucha 729). This single tragic episode is representative of thousands of others, but more than that, it is a symbol of the hatred, mistrust, and misunderstanding that defined the relationship between white America and Native peoples.

Deception, Relocation, and the Loss of Native Culture

This misunderstanding and distrust surfaces repeatedly throughout the book. Perhaps one of the most disturbing chapters is titled "The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian," which captures the white establishment's general attitude toward Native peoples and the justification used for forcing them onto reservations. Scholar Wolfgang Mieder writes of this chapter: "'The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian,' about the savage exploits of General Philip Sheridan and many of his officers and troops. Anybody who has read this book, and especially this chapter, cannot possibly see any humor in this proverb. The fact that this proverb is still used today is a very sad comment on this society and its behavior toward Native Americans" (Mieder 56).

Brown's history ultimately reveals only the tip of the iceberg, demonstrating that the consequences of Native American dispossession have never been fully resolved. Many reservations remain mired in poverty, unemployment, violence, and addiction. The Natives were relocated and their entire way of life was uprooted; many have never fully adapted to the world the white settlers imposed upon them. Some tribes have attempted to rebuild through gaming and other industries, but many reservations will never support their communities the way tribal homelands once did. Brown's book captures the real tragedy facing Native Americans: the loss of their way of life, their culture, and their language. The deception of the white establishment stripped them of everything they knew and loved, and replaced it with nothing of equivalent cultural or social value.

Conclusion: A Trail of Blood and Enduring Strength

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a compelling and difficult book to read. It tells the graphic history of the Native Americans, and makes clear that their way of life was paramount to their well-being, their culture, and their very existence. So many of them attempted to hold on to their old ways even as they were stripped from their lands and moved to strange, uninhabitable places. Their character, strength, and dignity come through clearly in the historical record, and Brown's book renders them sympathetic without ever diminishing their proud determination to survive and thrive. As Red Cloud says in the book, "When the white man comes to my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him" (Brown 103). That blood may have dried, but it endures in Native American history as a permanent testament to their strength, their determination, and their will to hold on to what was rightfully theirs.

References

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2001.

Lyman, Stanley David. Wounded Knee 1973: A Personal Account. Eds. Floyd A. O'Neil, June K. Lyman, and Susan McKay. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

Mieder, Wolfgang. "The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian: History and Meaning of a Proverbial Stereotype." Journal of American Folklore 106.419 (1993): 38–60.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.