Dee Brown and the book ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West’

The book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West is described by Macmillan Publishers as “Dee Brown‘s eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century.”  The Encyclopedia of World Biography quotes Brown‘s book as an “invaluable and extensive impact on how Native American history is viewed” while National Public Radio (NPR) reviewed the book in 2019 as telling a “story of U.S. government betrayal, forced relocation and massacres.”

(Dee Brown wrote Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, which was first published in 1970).

The book is told from several firsthand points-of-view of members of the distinct native cultures impacted by the incoming United States government composed largely of Europeans. After giving a brief overview of the United States and native population from the Christopher Columbus landing in 1492 to 1860, the novel gives extensive tales of American encroachment on native lands and against native populations. The point-of-view relies on direct quotation through the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 1890.

(Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown has been widely published in repeated printings since originally being published in 1970. A sampling of alternative covers is shown here).

The message book is not without those wishing for a fuller articulation of the American point-of-view. While the book touches on elements of the American Civil War, for example, there is other history of the United States at the time. The notion of Manifest Destiny was discussed strictly in its effect on broken promises in furtherance of land and cultural encroachment. That said, the book is subtitled as an “Indian History”. The David Treuer book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present tackles issues he, Treuer, had with Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West among at least some surviving natives.

(The most influential book written by Dee Brown remains Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West).

There is merit to the effort of Dee Brown from Alberta, Louisiana aiming to tell the first-person story of native populations affected by their interactions with the European counterparts that in large part established a new government in North America. There are issues on multiple levels as well, which tempers my overall grade for the book. I grant Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.

Matt – Saturday, August 12, 2023

Kevin Costner and seven time Academy Award winning movie ‘Dances with Wolves’

Winning Academy Awards for best picture, director, cinematography, film editing, adapted screenplay, original musical score and sound mixing, Kevin Costner‘s directorial debut was a commercial and mostly critical success. (For criticism on cultural grounds, read point sixteen here). Dances with Wolves (1990) ran for approximately three-hours in theatres and nearly four-hours with the extended cut intended for home viewing.

(From left, Robert Pastorelli as Timmons and Kevin Costner as Lieutenant John Dunbar in the movie Dances with Wolves).

Kevin Costner stars as the character Lieutenant John Dunbar of the American Civil War‘s Union Army whose perspective both narrates and interprets the experience of Dances with Wolves. The film, clearly a western, offers some colorful history for Dunbar that allows the film to unfurl in some form of context that offers a view into the lives of Sioux peoples. The film gets into the serious storytelling of the Sioux culture after arriving at Fort Sedgewick with Timmons, as portrayed by Robert Pastorelli.

(From left, Rodney A. Grant as Wind In His Hair and Graham Greene as Kicking Bird in the movie Dances with Wolves).

The story of Dancing with Wolves revolves largely around getting to understand the lifestyle that was that of the Sioux peoples that lives in part of the Great Plains region of North America. The beginning of that tale in the movie involves the prejudice and stereotypes of the native and emerging United States national culture that will brings with it conflict. Dunbar keeps a diary of the initial perceptions of contact from the perspective of a Union solider. Wind In His Hair, as portrayed by Rodney A. Grant, and Kicking Bird as portrayed by Graham Greene are part of the Sioux perspective.

(From left, Tantoo Cardinal as Black Shawl, Mary McDonnell as Stands With A Fist and Otakuye Conroy as Kicking Bird’s Daughter in the movie Dances with Wolves).

A significant portion of making the larger narrative of the interpersonal, non-historical story of Dances with Wolves emotionally work was a story of romance and physical communication. This placed Stands With A Fist, as portrayed by Mary McDonnell, at the center of two important pieces of that achievement. Getting to know Stands With A Fist at first took interaction with Kicking Bear and Wind In His Hair and Kicking Bird. Kicking Bird’s wife Black Shawl, as portrayed by Tantoo Cardinal, became central to building that story.

(Teddy and Buck as Two Socks – a Wolf in Dances with Wolves).

It took a fair amount of movie time for the notion of why the wolf, a character we came to know as Two Socks, developed some emotional feet. As the backstory for John Dunbar began to lose its meaning, the role of what it meant to be Union soldier gave way to what the day-to-day lifestyle of being Sioux in the community that John Dunbar had found. In a bit of a spoiler, Dunbar had been granted a Sioux name the revealed the budding relationship Dunbar had with the wolf and with the larger Sioux community. After all, Dunbar’s emotional conversion, along with the social meaning of that conversion that is a sore subject of cultural identity and portrayal for some, gets its emotional legs.

(From left, Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman as Ten Bears and Doris Leader Charge as Pretty Shield in the movie Dances with Wolves).

Leadership with the Sioux community that Dunbar took to heart in Dances with Wolves included Chief Ten Bears, as portrayed by Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman and his wife, Pretty Shield, as portrayed by Doris Leader Charge. When the larger narrative for returning the movie to the opening backstory that started the revelation of the Sioux culture had come to pass, know that Ten Bears and his wife and Pretty Shield, along with others, played their part.

(Tony Pierce as Corporal Spivey in the movie Dances with Wolves).

I briefly touched on the Dances with Wolves story of John Dunbar had come to Fort Sedgewick, near modern day Julesburg, Colorado in the northeast part of the state. Corporal Spivey, as portrayed by Tony Pierce, offers something meaningful for the broader brushstrokes of the movie directed by Kevin Costner that were meant to be felt. Michael Blake‘s screenplay and novel helped lead us here. I for one appreciated the story for the lifestyle of the Sioux that was shared. Acknowledging the cultural critique (read point sixteen here) that comes with the Hollywood story, our rating for Dances with Wolves is 4.0-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 stars.

Matt – Saturday, January 2, 2021

David Treuer and the book ‘The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee’

The Wounded Knee Massacre in December 1890 has been culturally perceived by many outside Native American as the end of of native culture in North America. In his book January 2019 book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, Ojibwe (Cherokee) American writer, critic, and academic David Treuer gives us a studied rebuttal to this notion while offering an affirmative, provoking, and defining look into what it means to be a Native American in America.

(Ojibwe American writer, critic, and academic David Treuer wrote the 2019 book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee).

In rebutting the narrative that Native American culture in America had met its end in 1890, in the Wounded Knee Massacre, David Treuer is taking aim at this notion as articulated in the 1970 Dee Brown book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. The Encyclopedia of World Biography quotes the book by Brown, a non-Native American lacking recognized connections to current native tribes, as “invaluable and extensive impact on how Native American history is viewed.” Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee tells a “story of U.S. government betrayal, forced relocation and massacres,” as quoted in a National Public Radio (NPR) review of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee.

(An image of the 2019 book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee).

Treuer takes pains in The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee to show a history that acknowledges external and internal pressures to force Native American assimilation while pointing to adaptation and maintenance of native culture and civilization despite some trying years. Treuer writes “I came to conceive of a book that would dismantle the tale of our demise by way of a new story. This book would focus on the untold story of the past 128 years, making visible the broader and deeper currents of Indian life that have too long been obscured.”

(Ojibwe American writer, critic, and academic David Treuer on C-SPAN discussing his 2019 book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee).

The United States and European powers before them justifiably come across as dishonest parties in the larger story of Native Americans in North America in Treuer‘s work.  So does the American Indian Movement, a radical and sometimes violent group from the 1960s and 1970s that sought to aid the political aims of Native Americans. Part of this telling demonstrated with clarity that natives as a collective group are not a single, unified force speaking and thinking with one voice. Treuer gives this history in an attempt to level the narrative with components of truth in recasting the story of what it means to be Native American.

(Ojibwe American writer, critic, and academic David Treuer wrote the 2019 book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee).

The story that Treur tells speaks of government action through the Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan presidencies. The 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act as signed by President Ronald Reagan allowed Native American tribes to begin administering  gambling. Many natives reference the period before this came to pass as “BC,” as in “before casinos,” wrote Treuer. While certainly profiting some within tribes directly, and skipping past many other natives in the way casino profits are shared, Treuer is careful to indicate that many secondary benefits for natives followed through construction work, improved education for work and a hybrid native and American system, has come from this legislation.

(Ojibwe American writer, critic, and academic David Treuer).

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee comes in at slightly over 500-pages. The work aims to reframe the larger understanding of what it means to be Native American from the perspective of an actual native with sympathies toward the larger sense of civilization that is represented. While the style or message of this effort is not for everyone, the effort work is serious and responsible in its tone, to my Caucasian male 40-something ear. My overall rating for David Treuer‘s work The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.

Matt – Saturday, June 15, 2019