Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
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| Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | |
 Cover to a later paperback edition: 1991 paperback edition published by Vintage. ISBN 0-8050-6669-1 |
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| Author | Dee Brown |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | United States History, Native Americans |
| Publisher | New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston |
| Publication date | 1970 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 487 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0030853222 |
- This article is about the 1970 book by Dee Brown. For the 2007 film of the same name, see Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (film). "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" is also the title of a song by Buffy Sainte-Marie and is the name of albums by both Gila and Yoriyos.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by American writer Dee Brown is a history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century, and their displacement and slaughter by the United States federal government. It was first published in 1970.
The title is taken from the final phrase of a 20th-century poem titled "American Names" by Stephen Vincent Benet, although the poem was not actually about the Indian Wars. The full quotation, "I shall not be here/I shall rise and pass/Bury my heart at Wounded Knee," appears at the beginning of Brown's book.
Contents |
[edit] Content
Chapter by chapter, this book moves from tribe to tribe of Native Americans, and outlines the relations of the tribes to the U.S. federal government during the years 1860-1890. It begins with the Navajos, the Apaches, and the other tribes of the American Southwest who were displaced as California and the surrounding states were settled. Brown chronicles the changing and sometimes conflicting attitudes both of American authorities such as General Custer and Indian chiefs, particularly Geronimo, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, and their different attempts to save their peoples, by peace, war, or retreat. The later part of the book focuses primarily on the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes of the plains, who were among the last to be moved onto reservations, under perhaps the most violent circumstances. It culminates with the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the deaths of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the slaughter of Sioux prisoners at Wounded Knee, South Dakota that is generally considered the end of the Indian Wars.
[edit] Success of the book
Time Magazine reviewed the book saying:
- "In the last decade or so, after almost a century of saloon art and horse operas that romanticized Indian fighters and white settlers, Americans have been developing a reasonably acute sense of the injustices and humiliations suffered by the Indians. But the details of how the West was won are not really part of the American consciousness ...
- "... Dee Brown, Western historian and head librarian at the University of Illinois, now attempts to balance the account. With the zeal of an IRS investigator, he audits U.S. history's forgotten set of books. Compiled from old but rarely exploited sources plus a fresh look at dusty Government documents, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee tallies the broken promises and treaties, the provocations, massacres. discriminatory policies and condescending diplomacy."[1]
One strength of the book is its strong documentation of original sources, such as council records and firsthand descriptions.[2]
Remaining on best seller lists for over a year in hardback, it was still in print 35 years later. Translated into at least 17 languages, it has sold nearly four million copies and is available as a Google book[3]
[edit] Popular culture
- The 1992 video game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time included a wild west level named "Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee".
- The FoxTrot collection that includes the strips where the family vacations at the fictional "Fun-Fun Mountain" amusement park was titled Bury My Heart at Fun-Fun Mountain.
- Buffy Sainte-Marie recorded a song of the same title accounting key elements of the US' opposition towards Native American culture. The Indigo Girls have since covered this song.
- The Cult, in their song "Horse Nation" on their Dreamtime album, has based its lyrics on quotations from the book.
- Five Iron Frenzy based the song "The Day We Killed" from their Five Iron Frenzy 2: Electric Boogaloo album on the book.
- The Four Seasons Of Wounded Knee is the generic title for a series of dramas by Ralph Morse (actor)
[edit] Film Adaptation
HBO Films produced a film version of the book for the HBO television network. The film stars Aidan Quinn, Adam Beach, Anna Paquin, and August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull. The film debuted on the HBO television network Sunday, May 27, 2007. The film received many Emmy nominations and went on to win Best Movie made for Television.
[edit] References
- ^ Sheppard, R.Z. (1971-02-01). The Forked-Tongue Syndrome. Time Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
- ^ Momaday, N. Scott. "A History of the Indians of the United States", New York Times, 1971-03-07, p. BR46. "It is first and foremost a compelling history of the Old West, distinguished ... because it is so carefully documented and designed."
- ^ Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. google. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
