Unfortunately, it is mostly the true side. Does the author trust the government or not? It doesn’t seem reasonable that he can see it both ways.Īlthough his writing is to the extreme, Bury My Heart is well written. This double standard immediately threw up a red flag. This is the same government his book says is full of liars, cheaters, deceivers, murderers, and thieves. The implication is that because the testimonies, recollections, and accounts are part of the official government record, it must be true and accurate. However, it is noted that a great deal of emphasis is placed upon government records. Having read this account, the book lost a great deal of its feeling of authenticity as one can only assume the same tactics were used throughout.īrown used many sources, primary and secondary, for his research.

While the Sand Creek Massacre was a terrible event that needs no embellishment on Brown’s part, his added commentary adds an enormous amount of fuel to an already flaming topic. He took primary and secondary views, congressional testimony, and recollections and added enough of his own ideas to make a bad thing worse. Having just completed a year long research paper on the Sand Creek Massacre, I read with much interest Brown’s account of the fateful November 1864 day.

Brown uses his version of what he assumes is the truth to show everyone how despicable all white men have been over the years. The United States government consistently lied and cheated them out of their land.

As white men pushed into the American West, the Indian was pushed out of the way, herded, given empty promises, mistreated, and in far too many instances, killed. The general thesis of Bury My Heart is the mistreatment of all Native Americans during this 30 year period. Brown uses many primary and secondary sources to weave his tales of woe and genocide for the purpose of inciting anger. The stories of many great Native American leaders and their tribes and their mistreatment are told in vivid detail. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West: New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 1970īury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West (Bury My Heart) tells the story of the American “Indian Wars” which lasted from the end of the Civil War to the 1890’s from an Indian point of view.

I lost my heart at wounded knee