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To Save the Man
In the vein of Never Let Me Go and Killers of the Flower Moon, one of America’s greatest storytellers sheds light on an American the Wounded Knee Massacre, and the ‘cultural genocide’ experienced by the Native American children at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School . . .In September of 1890, the academic year begins at the Carlisle school — a military-style boarding school for Indians run by Captain Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt’s motto, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” is enforced in the classroom as well as the dorm speak English, forget your own language and customs, learn to be white.While the students navigate survival, they hear rumors of a sweeping tribal lands reservations in the west—the “ghost dance,” whereby desperate Native Americans engaged in frenzied dancing and chanting hoping it will cause the buffalo will return, the Indian dead to rise, and the white people to disappear. Local whites panic, and the government sends in troops to keep the reservations under control. When legendary medicine man Sitting Bull is killed by native police working for the government troops, each Carlisle resident is faced with the Whose side are you on? And what will you risk to gain your freedom?
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Published October 1, 2025
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About the author
John Sayles
89 books141 followersJohn Thomas Sayles is an independent film director, screenwriter, novelist and short story writer who frequently plays small roles in his own and other indie films.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
January 21, 2025
Nothing can crush your faith in humanity more than seeing how inhuman, how cruel an “enlightened” people can be to others. The self-righteous genocide of Native Americans seems to have been done with very little remorse at the time. A dismissive “what a shame” is easily copped to after the fact, with a white-washed history book glossing over what white America was capable of. The fact that some politicians vehemently oppose the teaching of race relations in schools, as if there is nothing to be learned from events like the Trail of Tears, is further evidence of this willful ignorance.
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded by Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt in 1879. Situated in Pennsylvania, this boarding school was seen as a way to re-educate Native Americans and better assimilate them into white society. Pratt believed Indians were equal to white men, they just needed to be stripped of their heritage.
“Here at the Carlisle School, we take the Indian child out of that culture, out of that environment, away from the obscenity of the reservation system that has been imposed by politicians who’ve never been west of the Mississippi…There are no halfway measures at Carlisle—to save the man, we must kill the Indian!” Pratt truly believed that the people were worth saving, but only if they conformed to his vision. He would mold them into something else, something he deemed worthy of salvation, rather than accepting them as they were.
John Sayles, a non-native author, illustrates the diverse reactions of students to Carlisle’s indoctrination, depending on each one’s background and previous exposure to the white world. Antoine, who is half-Ojibwe and speaks English, has received education from nuns on his reservation. His father has been forced to send him to the school as a way to retain title to his land. Makes-Trouble-In-Front, a rebellious Sioux boy who does not speak English focuses solely on escaping. Miss Redbird is an instructor of Indian heritage– a shining example of what white men can sculpt with these methods. “See what we’ve made her.”
Elsewhere, there are rumors circulating about the Ghost Dance rituals spreading through Indian territories. The dance is said to unite the living with the spirits of the dead to stop the white man and restore harmony. The buffalo will return and the white man– his weapons rendered ineffective– will perish either by fire or flood. White fears were rising, fueled by accounts from reporters looking to sensationalize the threat. The Wounded Knee Massacre that followed would have a profound effect on the students.
However well-intentioned Lieutenant Pratt’s plans were, the effects of Indian boarding schools were devastating to thousands of children. Identities were vanquished with the separation from family, the forced cutting of hair, the disposing of traditional clothing, and the strict prohibition of speaking Native language. Many died due to first-time exposure to diseases, some just chose suicide. Others that did survive returned only to find themselves rejected as no longer Indian.
This is an unforgivable passage of American history and Sayles does an exceptional job in populating the novel with some authentic characters. The narrative sometimes jumps around in quick bursts, though, and other characters are lightly touched upon and seem underdeveloped. Overall, this is a well thought out portrayal of the extreme methods America used to resolve the "Native American problem."
Thank you to Melville House Publishing, NetGalley, and Edelweiss for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #ToSavetheMan #NetGalley
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded by Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt in 1879. Situated in Pennsylvania, this boarding school was seen as a way to re-educate Native Americans and better assimilate them into white society. Pratt believed Indians were equal to white men, they just needed to be stripped of their heritage.
“Here at the Carlisle School, we take the Indian child out of that culture, out of that environment, away from the obscenity of the reservation system that has been imposed by politicians who’ve never been west of the Mississippi…There are no halfway measures at Carlisle—to save the man, we must kill the Indian!” Pratt truly believed that the people were worth saving, but only if they conformed to his vision. He would mold them into something else, something he deemed worthy of salvation, rather than accepting them as they were.
John Sayles, a non-native author, illustrates the diverse reactions of students to Carlisle’s indoctrination, depending on each one’s background and previous exposure to the white world. Antoine, who is half-Ojibwe and speaks English, has received education from nuns on his reservation. His father has been forced to send him to the school as a way to retain title to his land. Makes-Trouble-In-Front, a rebellious Sioux boy who does not speak English focuses solely on escaping. Miss Redbird is an instructor of Indian heritage– a shining example of what white men can sculpt with these methods. “See what we’ve made her.”
Elsewhere, there are rumors circulating about the Ghost Dance rituals spreading through Indian territories. The dance is said to unite the living with the spirits of the dead to stop the white man and restore harmony. The buffalo will return and the white man– his weapons rendered ineffective– will perish either by fire or flood. White fears were rising, fueled by accounts from reporters looking to sensationalize the threat. The Wounded Knee Massacre that followed would have a profound effect on the students.
However well-intentioned Lieutenant Pratt’s plans were, the effects of Indian boarding schools were devastating to thousands of children. Identities were vanquished with the separation from family, the forced cutting of hair, the disposing of traditional clothing, and the strict prohibition of speaking Native language. Many died due to first-time exposure to diseases, some just chose suicide. Others that did survive returned only to find themselves rejected as no longer Indian.
This is an unforgivable passage of American history and Sayles does an exceptional job in populating the novel with some authentic characters. The narrative sometimes jumps around in quick bursts, though, and other characters are lightly touched upon and seem underdeveloped. Overall, this is a well thought out portrayal of the extreme methods America used to resolve the "Native American problem."
Thank you to Melville House Publishing, NetGalley, and Edelweiss for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #ToSavetheMan #NetGalley
December 9, 2024
This deeply researched novel juxtaposes life at the Carlisle Indian Boarding School in the late 19th century with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. In this juxtaposition lies the book’s great work of imagination, allowing the reader to experience what Wounded Knee meant to some of the students at the school as well as to the reformers who ran the school. At the same time, it illuminates the motivations and effects of the school’s program of forced assimilation, the unabashed goal of which was “to save the man” by killing the Indian within him.
I greatly appreciated the depth and breadth of Sayles’s research. For the first time, I began to understand the mentality, good intentions, cruelty, and arrogance of the various reformers who founded and promoted the Indian boarding schools of the 19th and 20th century. I also appreciated Sayles’s respect for Native cultures and his refusal to make his Native characters archetypes or stock characters. As a reader, I understood them as individuals with different levels of Native experience and White exposure and education, and never did I feel compelled to see them as composites or representatives of their tribes.
Because there are so many characters in this novel from so many backgrounds—a feature of the Carlisle School in that it had students from all across the continent—the narrative momentum was diluted. Many interesting things happened, but not everything was of interest to me, and without the less-than-interesting events forming a forward-moving narrative thrust, the pacing seemed to lag. The description of life at the school often felt ethnographic—recording the culture of the Carlisle School in its enforced uniformity that overlaid the great diversity of its students. I appreciate that in many ways, but I also got impatient with it when I wanted the story to move forward.
Sayles wanted to make this story into a movie, and I wanted to read the book in part because I admire his movies so much—he is one of my favorite film directors. I could see much of the ethnographic nature of the book made into the kind of slice-of-life scenes that Sayles does so very well. He uses cinematic techniques in much of the book, most noticeably quick cuts between scenes and characters that sometimes even interrupt dialogue—something that is highly effective in movies but a bit jarring in a book, at least until you get used to it. It did help to propel the book forward through a great deal of character development without complicating the plot further, which ultimately enhanced my reading of the book.
I also wanted to read To Save the Man because I’m very interested in the history of Native America, wherein the boarding schools and the Wounded Knee massacre both loom large. Despite my impatience with the novel’s slow narrative development, I enjoyed reading it and greatly appreciate the insight I gained into the origins of the Indian boarding schools and the additional perspective on Wounded Knee. I was trained as a historian before I became a fiction writer, and I’m always aware that even the most deeply researched novels are not works of history. However, good historical fiction can give you the feeling of being in a distant time and place in ways that are otherwise inaccessible. John Sayles does that very well in To Save the Man, which gave me greater empathy for and understanding of the people who were caught up in that history.
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House for providing access to an advance copy.
I greatly appreciated the depth and breadth of Sayles’s research. For the first time, I began to understand the mentality, good intentions, cruelty, and arrogance of the various reformers who founded and promoted the Indian boarding schools of the 19th and 20th century. I also appreciated Sayles’s respect for Native cultures and his refusal to make his Native characters archetypes or stock characters. As a reader, I understood them as individuals with different levels of Native experience and White exposure and education, and never did I feel compelled to see them as composites or representatives of their tribes.
Because there are so many characters in this novel from so many backgrounds—a feature of the Carlisle School in that it had students from all across the continent—the narrative momentum was diluted. Many interesting things happened, but not everything was of interest to me, and without the less-than-interesting events forming a forward-moving narrative thrust, the pacing seemed to lag. The description of life at the school often felt ethnographic—recording the culture of the Carlisle School in its enforced uniformity that overlaid the great diversity of its students. I appreciate that in many ways, but I also got impatient with it when I wanted the story to move forward.
Sayles wanted to make this story into a movie, and I wanted to read the book in part because I admire his movies so much—he is one of my favorite film directors. I could see much of the ethnographic nature of the book made into the kind of slice-of-life scenes that Sayles does so very well. He uses cinematic techniques in much of the book, most noticeably quick cuts between scenes and characters that sometimes even interrupt dialogue—something that is highly effective in movies but a bit jarring in a book, at least until you get used to it. It did help to propel the book forward through a great deal of character development without complicating the plot further, which ultimately enhanced my reading of the book.
I also wanted to read To Save the Man because I’m very interested in the history of Native America, wherein the boarding schools and the Wounded Knee massacre both loom large. Despite my impatience with the novel’s slow narrative development, I enjoyed reading it and greatly appreciate the insight I gained into the origins of the Indian boarding schools and the additional perspective on Wounded Knee. I was trained as a historian before I became a fiction writer, and I’m always aware that even the most deeply researched novels are not works of history. However, good historical fiction can give you the feeling of being in a distant time and place in ways that are otherwise inaccessible. John Sayles does that very well in To Save the Man, which gave me greater empathy for and understanding of the people who were caught up in that history.
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House for providing access to an advance copy.
August 18, 2024
In the last few years I’ve been working on filling in the numerous heavy knowledge gaps left over from where my US history education in school fell short, with a particular focus on trying to fix the almost total lack of information I receive involving all things native American. To say the least, I’ve learned quite a lot, but also feel like I still have a very, very considerable way to go, to put it gently. As a result, I appreciated my opportunity to real John Sayles' latest work. Was it able to fully cover the actual scale of the intense attempted cultural genocide that was kicked off with the establishment of the Carlisle Indian School? No, of course not. But To Save the Man still does excellent work bringing to life the really helped bring to life the beginnings of the forced assimilation period indigenous-US government relations and the multiple harsh and complex disruptions that it not only immediately caused, but whose after-effects continue to be felt into the present day.
February 6, 2025
To Save The Man by John Sayles published January 21st with Melville House with Booklist Magazine describing it as ‘a virtuosic performance by a gifted storyteller.’ I had no prior knowledge of any of the history that John Sayers concentrates on in this novel so I was appalled by what I read.
In 1879 the Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened its doors in Pennsylvania as the first off-reservation facility of its kind. Under the tutelage of Captain Richard Henry Pratt, its objective was to train Indian children to become more white in their culture, their appearances and their language. Pratt truly believed that in order to fulfil his objective he needed to kill off the Indian culture with his motto “To save the man, we must kill the Indian”. The Carlisle School was in fact a conversion camp where young native Indians, both male and female, were, in many cases, forcibly taken from their homes and stripped of all their heritage from their hair, to their clothes and their words. This barbaric treatment was justified as necessary in order to assimilate them into the culture of the more superior white man.
As the native American population dwindled, John Sayles explores one particular period of life at the Carlisle School in September 1890. A new batch of students have arrived, some more capable than others. Through their eyes we see how they are gradually stripped of all that they know and inserted into a military style of life, with strict orders attached to every move they make. The confusion and the pure cruelty of what is inflicted on them is shocking. These young people love their culture and their way of life and the tragedy of these schools is that many students found it very challenging to return home after. They had been irreversibly changed and no longer belonged alongside their more traditional family members. The insights into their minds and how they each struggled to comprehend what was happening was reprehensible to read. The reality of their situation must have been so very frightening for them as they were forced to live in this alien world. But, at the same time there, was a movement gaining momentum, with rumours of ‘ghost dances’ on the Plains.
These dances were a revolt that grew from the belief that ‘the spirits of the dead would be raised, the buffalo would return, and European settlers would be driven away. A dance was the central focus of the ritual.’ – Oxford Reference. As the rumours reached Carlisle School, the students are faced with decisions – do they return home or do they continue this path of assimilation for a supposed better future? The American government did their best to quash these ‘ghost dances’ using force when deemed necessary but in December of 1890 on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, Chief Sitting Bull was killed by the US Cavalry. Many Lakota Indians fled that reservation and made their way to the Pine Ridge Reservation where, following a tense situation between the Native Americans and the US army, bullets were fired into a crowd. Killing hundreds of native men, women and children, this battle became known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.
To Save The Man is not an easy read but it is an important one. Using fiction wrapped around facts John Sayles takes the reader on an extraordinary journey deep into a reprehensible period of American history. The historical references are well-informed and it is very obvious the level of research that was covered in order to bring the different strands of the novel together. The superiority of one race, and their belief that their way is the only way is still, unfortunately, very relevant in our world today as ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ continues. A challenging read but a momentous one, To Save The Man is a complex and well-considered novel, a fascinating and potent book.
In 1879 the Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened its doors in Pennsylvania as the first off-reservation facility of its kind. Under the tutelage of Captain Richard Henry Pratt, its objective was to train Indian children to become more white in their culture, their appearances and their language. Pratt truly believed that in order to fulfil his objective he needed to kill off the Indian culture with his motto “To save the man, we must kill the Indian”. The Carlisle School was in fact a conversion camp where young native Indians, both male and female, were, in many cases, forcibly taken from their homes and stripped of all their heritage from their hair, to their clothes and their words. This barbaric treatment was justified as necessary in order to assimilate them into the culture of the more superior white man.
As the native American population dwindled, John Sayles explores one particular period of life at the Carlisle School in September 1890. A new batch of students have arrived, some more capable than others. Through their eyes we see how they are gradually stripped of all that they know and inserted into a military style of life, with strict orders attached to every move they make. The confusion and the pure cruelty of what is inflicted on them is shocking. These young people love their culture and their way of life and the tragedy of these schools is that many students found it very challenging to return home after. They had been irreversibly changed and no longer belonged alongside their more traditional family members. The insights into their minds and how they each struggled to comprehend what was happening was reprehensible to read. The reality of their situation must have been so very frightening for them as they were forced to live in this alien world. But, at the same time there, was a movement gaining momentum, with rumours of ‘ghost dances’ on the Plains.
These dances were a revolt that grew from the belief that ‘the spirits of the dead would be raised, the buffalo would return, and European settlers would be driven away. A dance was the central focus of the ritual.’ – Oxford Reference. As the rumours reached Carlisle School, the students are faced with decisions – do they return home or do they continue this path of assimilation for a supposed better future? The American government did their best to quash these ‘ghost dances’ using force when deemed necessary but in December of 1890 on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, Chief Sitting Bull was killed by the US Cavalry. Many Lakota Indians fled that reservation and made their way to the Pine Ridge Reservation where, following a tense situation between the Native Americans and the US army, bullets were fired into a crowd. Killing hundreds of native men, women and children, this battle became known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.
To Save The Man is not an easy read but it is an important one. Using fiction wrapped around facts John Sayles takes the reader on an extraordinary journey deep into a reprehensible period of American history. The historical references are well-informed and it is very obvious the level of research that was covered in order to bring the different strands of the novel together. The superiority of one race, and their belief that their way is the only way is still, unfortunately, very relevant in our world today as ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ continues. A challenging read but a momentous one, To Save The Man is a complex and well-considered novel, a fascinating and potent book.
January 31, 2025
To Save The Man was a real eye opener for me and it shocked me in parts. Genocide is not a phrase that we use lightly in society but there is no other way to describe the events that happen in this book. The Pennsylvania School for Indians was set up by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, in the belief that he was helping the Native American Communities by teaching their children how to speak english, wear english/american clothes and learn a trade. However what is really happeneing is the erasing of their heritage, culture, language and ultimately their identity; they even changed their names. The title itself is a motto adopted by Captain Pratt that refers to his belief that to save these children, they must kill the Indian in them.
The main characters are the young boys and girls who are the new recruits in this military style school. We follow them for four months in which their identity is slowly depleted as they are transformed into the more acceptable, and ‘civilised’ citizens of America. Antoine is sent by his father to the school as that is the only way his family can keep their land. He is lucky in that he can speak English and has some education. At the other end if the scale is Asa, also known as trouble, who doesn’t understand English and really struggles at the school and just wants to run away. There are a lot if characters in this book and all have a story to tell of how they came to be at the school, and their lives before. Through these characters the horrors of colonialism are laid bare; the superiority of the white men, the attitudes of those in charage and their belief that they are doing good work.
The historical aspect if this book is amazing, John Sayles must have done a lot of research into this period. As well as life at the school he draws attention to a new Messiah in the reservations, offering slavation to the Indians, telling them how prayer and dance could resurrect the dead and bring down the white people who had stolen their land and destroyed their tribes. Also dealt with is the massacre that was a result of this. My only criticism is that reading this book felta bit disjointed at times, the narrative being more like scenes from a screenplay. John Syles brings the reader into the lives of these characters, his descriptive prose draws you into their lives, their thoughts and feelings and hopes for the future.
To Save The Man is an amazing piece of historical fiction. The historical detail shines through and I loved learning more and seeing how the different characters dealt with the hardships that were thrown their way. From a modern perspective it is a disgraceful and horrific period in American history, it was shocking to read how these young children were treated, the essence of themselves eradicated, their name, heritage and language taken from them. This is a compelling read and one I won’t forget.
The main characters are the young boys and girls who are the new recruits in this military style school. We follow them for four months in which their identity is slowly depleted as they are transformed into the more acceptable, and ‘civilised’ citizens of America. Antoine is sent by his father to the school as that is the only way his family can keep their land. He is lucky in that he can speak English and has some education. At the other end if the scale is Asa, also known as trouble, who doesn’t understand English and really struggles at the school and just wants to run away. There are a lot if characters in this book and all have a story to tell of how they came to be at the school, and their lives before. Through these characters the horrors of colonialism are laid bare; the superiority of the white men, the attitudes of those in charage and their belief that they are doing good work.
The historical aspect if this book is amazing, John Sayles must have done a lot of research into this period. As well as life at the school he draws attention to a new Messiah in the reservations, offering slavation to the Indians, telling them how prayer and dance could resurrect the dead and bring down the white people who had stolen their land and destroyed their tribes. Also dealt with is the massacre that was a result of this. My only criticism is that reading this book felta bit disjointed at times, the narrative being more like scenes from a screenplay. John Syles brings the reader into the lives of these characters, his descriptive prose draws you into their lives, their thoughts and feelings and hopes for the future.
To Save The Man is an amazing piece of historical fiction. The historical detail shines through and I loved learning more and seeing how the different characters dealt with the hardships that were thrown their way. From a modern perspective it is a disgraceful and horrific period in American history, it was shocking to read how these young children were treated, the essence of themselves eradicated, their name, heritage and language taken from them. This is a compelling read and one I won’t forget.
March 30, 2025
A sad novel about the Carlisle School, which took Native American children and tried to "Kill the Indian to Save the Man". The treatment these children received was a form of Genocide. It was painful to read, but the author did a wonderful job showing what the School was like. A worthy book to read.
January 21, 2026
1/24 (2026)
Strange ending, not as sad or deadly as i thought it was going to be, but a beautiful story with tons of great characters. I really enjoyed it. Didn’t overdo it on the imagery, focused more on the characters thoughts and reactions.
Trubba play🥹🥹
Strange ending, not as sad or deadly as i thought it was going to be, but a beautiful story with tons of great characters. I really enjoyed it. Didn’t overdo it on the imagery, focused more on the characters thoughts and reactions.
Trubba play🥹🥹
Want to read
January 14, 2025I started reading an ARC. The formatting is too difficult to negotiate, so I'm putting it down and will wait for the finished book.
March 18, 2025
Very worthy, well written and researched but too sad for me to finish in this current world. Had to skip ahead to minimize misery.
December 8, 2024
My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for an advance copy of this novel that looks at live at the end of the nineteenth century for members of what was called in Indian School, created and developed to cut the ties of Native American children to their past and culture, and make good people out of them.
There is much in the history of the United States that is kept in the dark. Moments that would make people question our so-called greatness, our gleaming beacon on a hill. We are a nation that loves God and law and order, yet the outlaw and the sleazy grifter seems to be our choice. Americans love to call out their individuality, their freedoms, but any one who has ever dealt with a Housing Association knows that that is a lie. And we never have wanted to deal with how we treated others who didn't fit the ideal dream. White and rich. America can't remember four years ago, asking them to know anything about Indian schools, would be a reach. This is why we have to look to literature, to show us the sins of the past, and how they still effect how we relate to today, and even more relate to each other. John Sayles is a screenwriter and director with a diverse work, from B-Movies, to historical pieces on baseball, strikes, and dealing with the past. Sayles is also an occasional novelist, and To Save the Man is a book about life at a real Indian School, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School at a time of turmoil and tragedy.
The book jumps in time and space and narratives, dealing with the different voices of students, instructors and others at the Carlisle School. At the time where most of the events take place 1890, the Native American way of life had been pretty much destroyed. There were many dead, the rest scattered far from their ancestral homes, placed on reservations. The buffalo were almost extinct, and even the lands given to them were not safe, as anyone with a claim could be given property with the slimmest of evidence of being of Indian blood. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was set up as an almost military academy using obedience, and forceing loyalty and a rebuilding of Native American children, tossing out the ways they knew and giving them something else. A hybrid life, almost of unacceptance to both cultures. Some of the students attended the school to get a toe hold in this new world, some had no choice at all, and some just gave up. At the start of a new academic year, a rumour begins that there is a ceremony, an idea that Native Americans are beginning to share, that they have a way to toss the white man out. To be immune to their bullets and return to the ways they knew. As rumors spread, so does paranoia, and when people get paranoid, violence is never far behind. To students at the school, this is both an exhilarating, confusing, and scary time. And things might only get worse.
A brutal book in many ways about how a culture can be wiped out be education and learning, but just enough education and learning to make Native Americans barely acceptable. Sayles is not only a good writer, but a good researcher getting to the little stories that add so much truth to his tale, that set scenes, that read so well, and yet truly hurt. The dialogue is also quite good, but the little moments, the people staring at a student on the train, the way a troubled boy is ignored when he needs to go to the bathroom. The confusion of Native teachers when the see what they are instructing. There are different narrators and time is quite fluid here, moving around from past to their present, to their future. However the learning curve is quick to pick up and really adds to the story. Sayles has done a very good thing in writing about these schools, as I know there is much controversy about the same schools in Canada. Events like these should not be avoided, or omitted from history.
I am not sure if this was a script moved to novel form. Considering the subject matter I am sure a movie would be hard to finance. Which is sad. We need to to more about our past, only then can we try to make a better future. Though that seems to be getting harder and harder as time passes. John Sayles is as good a director as he is a writer, and this would be a good place to start learning more about this very creative man.
There is much in the history of the United States that is kept in the dark. Moments that would make people question our so-called greatness, our gleaming beacon on a hill. We are a nation that loves God and law and order, yet the outlaw and the sleazy grifter seems to be our choice. Americans love to call out their individuality, their freedoms, but any one who has ever dealt with a Housing Association knows that that is a lie. And we never have wanted to deal with how we treated others who didn't fit the ideal dream. White and rich. America can't remember four years ago, asking them to know anything about Indian schools, would be a reach. This is why we have to look to literature, to show us the sins of the past, and how they still effect how we relate to today, and even more relate to each other. John Sayles is a screenwriter and director with a diverse work, from B-Movies, to historical pieces on baseball, strikes, and dealing with the past. Sayles is also an occasional novelist, and To Save the Man is a book about life at a real Indian School, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School at a time of turmoil and tragedy.
The book jumps in time and space and narratives, dealing with the different voices of students, instructors and others at the Carlisle School. At the time where most of the events take place 1890, the Native American way of life had been pretty much destroyed. There were many dead, the rest scattered far from their ancestral homes, placed on reservations. The buffalo were almost extinct, and even the lands given to them were not safe, as anyone with a claim could be given property with the slimmest of evidence of being of Indian blood. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was set up as an almost military academy using obedience, and forceing loyalty and a rebuilding of Native American children, tossing out the ways they knew and giving them something else. A hybrid life, almost of unacceptance to both cultures. Some of the students attended the school to get a toe hold in this new world, some had no choice at all, and some just gave up. At the start of a new academic year, a rumour begins that there is a ceremony, an idea that Native Americans are beginning to share, that they have a way to toss the white man out. To be immune to their bullets and return to the ways they knew. As rumors spread, so does paranoia, and when people get paranoid, violence is never far behind. To students at the school, this is both an exhilarating, confusing, and scary time. And things might only get worse.
A brutal book in many ways about how a culture can be wiped out be education and learning, but just enough education and learning to make Native Americans barely acceptable. Sayles is not only a good writer, but a good researcher getting to the little stories that add so much truth to his tale, that set scenes, that read so well, and yet truly hurt. The dialogue is also quite good, but the little moments, the people staring at a student on the train, the way a troubled boy is ignored when he needs to go to the bathroom. The confusion of Native teachers when the see what they are instructing. There are different narrators and time is quite fluid here, moving around from past to their present, to their future. However the learning curve is quick to pick up and really adds to the story. Sayles has done a very good thing in writing about these schools, as I know there is much controversy about the same schools in Canada. Events like these should not be avoided, or omitted from history.
I am not sure if this was a script moved to novel form. Considering the subject matter I am sure a movie would be hard to finance. Which is sad. We need to to more about our past, only then can we try to make a better future. Though that seems to be getting harder and harder as time passes. John Sayles is as good a director as he is a writer, and this would be a good place to start learning more about this very creative man.
January 24, 2025
September, 1890. A new academic year begins at the Carlisle School for Indians, a boarding school for boys and girls established by serving officer Captain Richard Henry Pratt, and sponsored by the Government. Pratt's motto is 'Kill the Indian, Save the Man', and he employs strict military methods to turn them into 'white' people, convinced this is the only way they will survive.
Outside the school walls, there is a growing wave of unrest in the uprooted Native American tribes forced into starvation and degradation. Rumours abound of a new Messiah, who promises that the buffalo will return, the Indian dead will rise, and the white people will disappear, if only they follow join his band of 'ghost dancing' apostles.
The whites are increasingly afraid, as the ghost dance spreads through reservations like wildfire. Pratt is certain that his crusading teaching methods raise his students above tribal affairs, but when panic leads to the murder of legendary Chief Sitting Bull, there are those at Carlisle compelled to cast off the personas foisted upon them in favour of the call of their blood.
This powerful, and beautifully written novel, juxtaposes an intimate picture of life at the very real Carlisle school, through the eyes of a small group of students, and staff, with the wave of messianic fervour that spread amongst the reservations in 1890, leading to the massacre at Wounded Knee. Both threads of the story weave inextricably together, conveying the true horror of a system designed to strip young Native Americans of their language, beliefs, and their very nature, while the shocking history of the treatment inflicted on the indigenous people of America plays out.
It is a novel that is extremely hard-hitting, as Sayles delves deeply into the complex fall-out of a perfect storm of power-hungry policies; cruelty; neglect; racism; genocidal intent; arrogance; and misguided good intentions. But, although it sent me down a lot of rabbit holes about the history surrounding the story (and there is lot touched on in this novel), there is nothing of the text-book about it. This is essentially a character-driven novel, and that is where its power truly lies.
My heart was broken over and over again as Sayles skilfully meanders between the innermost thoughts of the characters, and their actions. Those of the pupils are especially difficult to read when it comes to the inhumanity of what is being asked of them in the name of 'benevolence'. The memories of their former lives bleed into the present, and these feed into your understanding of their bewilderment, rage, and unfathomable sadness, and what lies at the heart of the wave of rebellion spreading across the country too. The relationships they forge between each other are especially affecting, as you get to know them through their hopes, dreams, and friendships as they try to keep something of themselves alive. Not to mention the cutting hypocrisy of a system that requires them to perform as active participants in romantic retellings of their own history, and celebrate such delights as Thanksgiving, while white people are actively destroying those they claim to be grateful to - it made me sick to my stomach.
It would be wrong to say I enjoyed this book, as it dragged me through the emotional mill. It is not one I would naturally have picked up, but I am so glad to have had the opportunity to read it. There are shades of the great American novel here, which really impressed me, and the scale of what Sayles achieves with this story is impressive. I will be thinking about these characters, and their experiences for a very long time to come.
Outside the school walls, there is a growing wave of unrest in the uprooted Native American tribes forced into starvation and degradation. Rumours abound of a new Messiah, who promises that the buffalo will return, the Indian dead will rise, and the white people will disappear, if only they follow join his band of 'ghost dancing' apostles.
The whites are increasingly afraid, as the ghost dance spreads through reservations like wildfire. Pratt is certain that his crusading teaching methods raise his students above tribal affairs, but when panic leads to the murder of legendary Chief Sitting Bull, there are those at Carlisle compelled to cast off the personas foisted upon them in favour of the call of their blood.
This powerful, and beautifully written novel, juxtaposes an intimate picture of life at the very real Carlisle school, through the eyes of a small group of students, and staff, with the wave of messianic fervour that spread amongst the reservations in 1890, leading to the massacre at Wounded Knee. Both threads of the story weave inextricably together, conveying the true horror of a system designed to strip young Native Americans of their language, beliefs, and their very nature, while the shocking history of the treatment inflicted on the indigenous people of America plays out.
It is a novel that is extremely hard-hitting, as Sayles delves deeply into the complex fall-out of a perfect storm of power-hungry policies; cruelty; neglect; racism; genocidal intent; arrogance; and misguided good intentions. But, although it sent me down a lot of rabbit holes about the history surrounding the story (and there is lot touched on in this novel), there is nothing of the text-book about it. This is essentially a character-driven novel, and that is where its power truly lies.
My heart was broken over and over again as Sayles skilfully meanders between the innermost thoughts of the characters, and their actions. Those of the pupils are especially difficult to read when it comes to the inhumanity of what is being asked of them in the name of 'benevolence'. The memories of their former lives bleed into the present, and these feed into your understanding of their bewilderment, rage, and unfathomable sadness, and what lies at the heart of the wave of rebellion spreading across the country too. The relationships they forge between each other are especially affecting, as you get to know them through their hopes, dreams, and friendships as they try to keep something of themselves alive. Not to mention the cutting hypocrisy of a system that requires them to perform as active participants in romantic retellings of their own history, and celebrate such delights as Thanksgiving, while white people are actively destroying those they claim to be grateful to - it made me sick to my stomach.
It would be wrong to say I enjoyed this book, as it dragged me through the emotional mill. It is not one I would naturally have picked up, but I am so glad to have had the opportunity to read it. There are shades of the great American novel here, which really impressed me, and the scale of what Sayles achieves with this story is impressive. I will be thinking about these characters, and their experiences for a very long time to come.
August 31, 2025
“To save the man, we must kill the Indian.” The mantra of Captain Pratt is repeated throughout the novel and the reader must first understand what he means, then the effect it has upon his charges.
Captain Pratt runs a boarding school for Native Americans, though this being 1890 they are referred to as Indians. It is run partly on military academy lines, instilling discipline, but also provides schooling and vocational training for pupils. They must forsake their customs and language and instead speak English and adopt Christian ideals and lifestyle. His mantra means that they intend to remove every trace, other than unchangeable physical ones, of their Indian identity to allow them to metamorphose into ‘White Men’. This must be a complete transformation, otherwise they may in future revert to their native ways.
The bulk of the story follows the lives of new and returning students at the school over a four-month period. There is the bewilderment of the new charges set against the meek acceptance of some of the returnees. Every aspect of their lives is laid out for the reader to absorb. This becomes an uncomfortable and unsettling read, the prose is non-judgemental, these were harsh times and this is accurately reflected, with many children elsewhere treated more harshly. What stands out though is the absolute certainty, the zeal in which this work is carried out. One of the pupils likens this process to how white men break and then dominate horses, they are breaking the spirit of the native children. Compelling and powerfully written, but with subtlety rather than the outright condemnation of current sensitivities. The reader will have great empathy for the children, but Captain Pratt is trying to improve the prospects of his charges, at that time some would have been happy to wipe out all Native Americans.
The second aspect of the story becomes significant in the final third, being the Ghost Dance movement. A spiritual movement within the natives that a messiah will come if sufficient people call for him. That through prayer, incantation and performing the ghost dance, the lands will shift swallowing up the white man and the sacred buffalo will return as before. Desperate beliefs for people facing the destruction of their way of life if not their entire existence. This mania gathers pace and spreads across the Great Plains, bringing unity to previously warring tribes. The newspapers stoke up fear and panic, brining inevitable confrontation and the massacre at Wounded Knee. Here the account and its aftermath are unflinching, capturing the savagery and senselessness of it all, with the mismatch of power between a modern army and braves who are accompanied by their women and children. An atrocity but only one of many at that time across the world.
Using the perspective of the children for much of the narrative is a wonderful idea, as they rail against the harsh rules, find love and disappointment but also see a world and way of life they are unfamiliar with. They are at the school for different reasons, some willingly, some thanks to tradition, whereas others are there against their will. The outcomes too vary considerably from outright embracement to complete rejection. This is highlighted by Miss Redbird, the student who returns to become a teacher but finds herself totally conflicted in the end.
This is a very thoughtful and thought-provoking historical fiction, that is so convincingly written that it is hard to determine what is fact and what is imagined.
Unflinchingly powerful American storytelling.
Captain Pratt runs a boarding school for Native Americans, though this being 1890 they are referred to as Indians. It is run partly on military academy lines, instilling discipline, but also provides schooling and vocational training for pupils. They must forsake their customs and language and instead speak English and adopt Christian ideals and lifestyle. His mantra means that they intend to remove every trace, other than unchangeable physical ones, of their Indian identity to allow them to metamorphose into ‘White Men’. This must be a complete transformation, otherwise they may in future revert to their native ways.
The bulk of the story follows the lives of new and returning students at the school over a four-month period. There is the bewilderment of the new charges set against the meek acceptance of some of the returnees. Every aspect of their lives is laid out for the reader to absorb. This becomes an uncomfortable and unsettling read, the prose is non-judgemental, these were harsh times and this is accurately reflected, with many children elsewhere treated more harshly. What stands out though is the absolute certainty, the zeal in which this work is carried out. One of the pupils likens this process to how white men break and then dominate horses, they are breaking the spirit of the native children. Compelling and powerfully written, but with subtlety rather than the outright condemnation of current sensitivities. The reader will have great empathy for the children, but Captain Pratt is trying to improve the prospects of his charges, at that time some would have been happy to wipe out all Native Americans.
The second aspect of the story becomes significant in the final third, being the Ghost Dance movement. A spiritual movement within the natives that a messiah will come if sufficient people call for him. That through prayer, incantation and performing the ghost dance, the lands will shift swallowing up the white man and the sacred buffalo will return as before. Desperate beliefs for people facing the destruction of their way of life if not their entire existence. This mania gathers pace and spreads across the Great Plains, bringing unity to previously warring tribes. The newspapers stoke up fear and panic, brining inevitable confrontation and the massacre at Wounded Knee. Here the account and its aftermath are unflinching, capturing the savagery and senselessness of it all, with the mismatch of power between a modern army and braves who are accompanied by their women and children. An atrocity but only one of many at that time across the world.
Using the perspective of the children for much of the narrative is a wonderful idea, as they rail against the harsh rules, find love and disappointment but also see a world and way of life they are unfamiliar with. They are at the school for different reasons, some willingly, some thanks to tradition, whereas others are there against their will. The outcomes too vary considerably from outright embracement to complete rejection. This is highlighted by Miss Redbird, the student who returns to become a teacher but finds herself totally conflicted in the end.
This is a very thoughtful and thought-provoking historical fiction, that is so convincingly written that it is hard to determine what is fact and what is imagined.
Unflinchingly powerful American storytelling.
November 4, 2024
TO SAVE THE MAN is a story about another shameful episode in American history. A story about the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, founded in Carlisle, PA in 1879. It was a military style boarding school, based in the historic Carlisle Barracks (now the U.S. Army War College), established and paid for by the government, to educate the children of indigenous people.
The title of the book comes from the school's founding superintendent, Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924). With previous experience handling indigenous POWs, Pratt came to believe so completely in the need for total assimilation by indigenous people, that he adhered to the motto "kill the Indian, save the man".
This is a deeply sad book. At the beginning, it's 1890. The buffalo are largely gone from the American plains and millions of indigenous peoples have already been killed off by war and disease. Indigenous parents often force their children to attend schools like Carlisle because of the promise that learning the ways of the white man will help them have a better future. But what the Carlisle School required in exchange was for the children to entirely give up their native customs, language, clothing, hair and name in exchange for only a small chance at citizenship. Sure they learned about arts, music, even football - but what a cost!
Administrators were continually trying to present a glossy facade to the public when, in reality, conditions were harsh. In addition to lessons, children were assigned to various types of agricultural and service work, both on and off campus, where their wages were sent directly to school coffers and the children themselves received only a small stipend for personal items.
Introduced early in the book and hovering over the entire story is a prediction from an indigenous Messiah, who says the native peoples will ultimately triumph over the whites, through the repeated performance of a Ghost Dance. So, the reader knows from the start something big is likely to happen.
So why only three stars? On the plus side, the author appears to have been diligent in his research. I learned a lot about what it was like to be at the Carlisle school. The military rigidity that greeted students at induction, the punishments meted out for those who tried to run away, and the pervasive colonial attitude of superiority held by teachers and other supervising adults.
“Our mission at the Carlisle School is to baptize the Indian youth in the waters of civilization—and to hold him under until he is thoroughly soaked!”
On the minus side, I had issues with the writing style that kept me from fully engaging. TO SAVE THE MAN is not a straightforward narrative. It has an episodic quality. There are long passages of narration, so the balance between narration and dialog felt off to me. There is an omniscient narrator, who introduces many characters, but we don't get to hear much from them directly so we learn little about their interior lives. Instead, their stories are put together in what felt to me like a piecemeal way, with some awkwardly abrupt transitions. I felt almost as though I was looking at a series of snapshots in a photo album and only at the end did I get a sense of story.
I do recommend the book, especially because I think most others will NOT be annoyed with the aspects that bothered me. And the content is extremely worthwhile.
The title of the book comes from the school's founding superintendent, Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924). With previous experience handling indigenous POWs, Pratt came to believe so completely in the need for total assimilation by indigenous people, that he adhered to the motto "kill the Indian, save the man".
This is a deeply sad book. At the beginning, it's 1890. The buffalo are largely gone from the American plains and millions of indigenous peoples have already been killed off by war and disease. Indigenous parents often force their children to attend schools like Carlisle because of the promise that learning the ways of the white man will help them have a better future. But what the Carlisle School required in exchange was for the children to entirely give up their native customs, language, clothing, hair and name in exchange for only a small chance at citizenship. Sure they learned about arts, music, even football - but what a cost!
Administrators were continually trying to present a glossy facade to the public when, in reality, conditions were harsh. In addition to lessons, children were assigned to various types of agricultural and service work, both on and off campus, where their wages were sent directly to school coffers and the children themselves received only a small stipend for personal items.
Introduced early in the book and hovering over the entire story is a prediction from an indigenous Messiah, who says the native peoples will ultimately triumph over the whites, through the repeated performance of a Ghost Dance. So, the reader knows from the start something big is likely to happen.
So why only three stars? On the plus side, the author appears to have been diligent in his research. I learned a lot about what it was like to be at the Carlisle school. The military rigidity that greeted students at induction, the punishments meted out for those who tried to run away, and the pervasive colonial attitude of superiority held by teachers and other supervising adults.
“Our mission at the Carlisle School is to baptize the Indian youth in the waters of civilization—and to hold him under until he is thoroughly soaked!”
On the minus side, I had issues with the writing style that kept me from fully engaging. TO SAVE THE MAN is not a straightforward narrative. It has an episodic quality. There are long passages of narration, so the balance between narration and dialog felt off to me. There is an omniscient narrator, who introduces many characters, but we don't get to hear much from them directly so we learn little about their interior lives. Instead, their stories are put together in what felt to me like a piecemeal way, with some awkwardly abrupt transitions. I felt almost as though I was looking at a series of snapshots in a photo album and only at the end did I get a sense of story.
I do recommend the book, especially because I think most others will NOT be annoyed with the aspects that bothered me. And the content is extremely worthwhile.
January 26, 2025
Of all the horrific incidents in American history that can no longer be covered up, the terrors and abuses in schools during the post-Civil War era have become another known chapter of misery and injustice utilized by artists and writers in new explorations. TO SAVE THE MAN by John Sayles is the latest book to focus on the victims and the government that said they would be protected and educated. It is an emotional and straight-ahead declaration of the wrongdoings that need to be recalled in order to stop them from ever happening again.
The academic year begins in September 1890 at the Carlisle School, a coed military-style boarding school in Pennsylvania for Native American children. The students are ordered to speak only English, forget their own language and customs, and learn to be like the white community. They try to find ways around the intellectual abuse, but Captain Richard Henry Pratt is a tough headmaster. His motto is “To save the man, we must kill the Indian.”
Soon the school is alive with the rumors of a “ghost dance” moving across their reservation homes. Tribal people are dancing, chanting and reporting visions in the hopes that their efforts will inspire the Creator to return the buffalo to the Plains, raise their beloved dead, and destroy their overseers with floods and fire. The yellow press hypes the story with falsehoods and spreads panic amongst white settlers, leading to the deployment of federal troops onto Lakota land. When Carlisle hears about Sitting Bull being killed by Native police working for the government, he demands that each student choose between the white man’s path or be part of a way of life that may be about to die out.
Sayles is a social activist filmmaker who does not skirt over issues and make light of difficult and tragic circumstances. From his look at the Matewan incident, to the corrupt World Series of the “Black Sox,” to race relations in Newark, Sayles is a historian of special artistic note. Antoine, a half-Ojibwe boy, and his friends at the school become the living and breathing example of how difficult and unfair these circumstances were. And now readers can better understand and learn from those times about what true democracy looks like in American history.
TO SAVE THE MAN is also a story of generations. The older generation holds fast to their beautiful, legendary ways of life, while the younger generation is torn between their elders’ customs and a world where they may be able to find a path of their own. This fight, this gap, is where the novel’s true drama sits. These young men and women explore a variety of relationships and ideas in order to find out what could be the best way forward.
“Hanging is no way for one of us to die!” shouts one young man after the hanging of a student. “Think of the shame it would bring your parents.” Thumping his chest, Clarence speaks in his native Lakota: “You have murder here…but we have to fight with our wits now.” The students bring the reality of the situation to a point where Carlisle is in the middle of both an intellectual war and a war of valor that will define what freedom really is for the next generations of Native youth.
This is not a book that’s fun to read. It’s thrilling and complicated, and its prose speaks directly to readers’ hearts and minds. TO SAVE THE MAN will stand as a historical rendering as compelling and profound as KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.
Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
The academic year begins in September 1890 at the Carlisle School, a coed military-style boarding school in Pennsylvania for Native American children. The students are ordered to speak only English, forget their own language and customs, and learn to be like the white community. They try to find ways around the intellectual abuse, but Captain Richard Henry Pratt is a tough headmaster. His motto is “To save the man, we must kill the Indian.”
Soon the school is alive with the rumors of a “ghost dance” moving across their reservation homes. Tribal people are dancing, chanting and reporting visions in the hopes that their efforts will inspire the Creator to return the buffalo to the Plains, raise their beloved dead, and destroy their overseers with floods and fire. The yellow press hypes the story with falsehoods and spreads panic amongst white settlers, leading to the deployment of federal troops onto Lakota land. When Carlisle hears about Sitting Bull being killed by Native police working for the government, he demands that each student choose between the white man’s path or be part of a way of life that may be about to die out.
Sayles is a social activist filmmaker who does not skirt over issues and make light of difficult and tragic circumstances. From his look at the Matewan incident, to the corrupt World Series of the “Black Sox,” to race relations in Newark, Sayles is a historian of special artistic note. Antoine, a half-Ojibwe boy, and his friends at the school become the living and breathing example of how difficult and unfair these circumstances were. And now readers can better understand and learn from those times about what true democracy looks like in American history.
TO SAVE THE MAN is also a story of generations. The older generation holds fast to their beautiful, legendary ways of life, while the younger generation is torn between their elders’ customs and a world where they may be able to find a path of their own. This fight, this gap, is where the novel’s true drama sits. These young men and women explore a variety of relationships and ideas in order to find out what could be the best way forward.
“Hanging is no way for one of us to die!” shouts one young man after the hanging of a student. “Think of the shame it would bring your parents.” Thumping his chest, Clarence speaks in his native Lakota: “You have murder here…but we have to fight with our wits now.” The students bring the reality of the situation to a point where Carlisle is in the middle of both an intellectual war and a war of valor that will define what freedom really is for the next generations of Native youth.
This is not a book that’s fun to read. It’s thrilling and complicated, and its prose speaks directly to readers’ hearts and minds. TO SAVE THE MAN will stand as a historical rendering as compelling and profound as KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.
Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
February 4, 2025
Review for Aspects of History magazine, all views are my own. Note: this book is rich in content and history that I couldn't write about anywhere near as much as I would have liked to!
Predominantly set at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, a military-style boarding school for Native Indians, To Save the Man explores Captain Pratt’s system of assimilation. Taking place between September and December 1890, this novel follows a myriad of characters as rumours of Sitting Bull’s prophecy and ghost dances reach the school, and tensions rise in the lead up to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Sayles shows readers the ease with which entire cultures were reduced to paperwork, and cooperation was forced under the guise of paternalism. To Save the Man also explores the devastating impact of government intervention on health, with many Indians dying as result of contracting unfamiliar diseases from contact with new people. Grace, a student on the nursing programme at the Carlisle School, provides readers with an example of how cooperation could have prevented this: she wished to combine understandings of both science and spirit in her healing practices.
Misinformation is a key topic explored in this book, with Sayles emphasising the sentiment that what people believe matters more than what is true. He explores the ease with which stories are created, manipulated or ignored, and the power of white American journalists in creating public reactions. Through newspapers, Sayles also comments on the complexities of translation – who should do it and the risk of deliberate or accidental errors.
Whilst this book follows both Indian and white American characters, and those of all ages, it is the children who are at the heart of this story. It was devastating to read how all aspects of their lives were changed: from their language to their dress to their understanding of time, and more. Sayles beautifully highlights the confusion, fear and resentment these changes would have elicited, whilst also ensuring these children are not reduced solely to their circumstances. Captain Pratt argued that ‘to save the man, we must kill the Indian’: this book not only focuses on the brutal ways that the government attempted to achieve this, but also on the acts of resilience and micro-nonconformity that prevented the complete erasure of Indians. Sayles also emphasises the children’s continued admiration and respect for the natural world, effortlessly weaving memories and cultural beliefs into the fabric of the land around them.
One of the most unusual aspects of this novel is the way the third person perspectives shift at unregulated intervals, rather than by chapter. John Sayles’ ability to create such clear voices for each character whilst writing in this way is masterful, allowing for a bridge between reader and characters: it facilitates the reader’s sense of omniscience without distancing them from the plot or protagonists.
To Save the Man is a story about a cultural genocide, told by both the persecutors and persecuted. It is a tribute to all the lost victims, and survivors, of the assimilation programmes. This is a story about choices, courage, endurance, and of a people’s right to the land they call home.
Predominantly set at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, a military-style boarding school for Native Indians, To Save the Man explores Captain Pratt’s system of assimilation. Taking place between September and December 1890, this novel follows a myriad of characters as rumours of Sitting Bull’s prophecy and ghost dances reach the school, and tensions rise in the lead up to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Sayles shows readers the ease with which entire cultures were reduced to paperwork, and cooperation was forced under the guise of paternalism. To Save the Man also explores the devastating impact of government intervention on health, with many Indians dying as result of contracting unfamiliar diseases from contact with new people. Grace, a student on the nursing programme at the Carlisle School, provides readers with an example of how cooperation could have prevented this: she wished to combine understandings of both science and spirit in her healing practices.
Misinformation is a key topic explored in this book, with Sayles emphasising the sentiment that what people believe matters more than what is true. He explores the ease with which stories are created, manipulated or ignored, and the power of white American journalists in creating public reactions. Through newspapers, Sayles also comments on the complexities of translation – who should do it and the risk of deliberate or accidental errors.
Whilst this book follows both Indian and white American characters, and those of all ages, it is the children who are at the heart of this story. It was devastating to read how all aspects of their lives were changed: from their language to their dress to their understanding of time, and more. Sayles beautifully highlights the confusion, fear and resentment these changes would have elicited, whilst also ensuring these children are not reduced solely to their circumstances. Captain Pratt argued that ‘to save the man, we must kill the Indian’: this book not only focuses on the brutal ways that the government attempted to achieve this, but also on the acts of resilience and micro-nonconformity that prevented the complete erasure of Indians. Sayles also emphasises the children’s continued admiration and respect for the natural world, effortlessly weaving memories and cultural beliefs into the fabric of the land around them.
One of the most unusual aspects of this novel is the way the third person perspectives shift at unregulated intervals, rather than by chapter. John Sayles’ ability to create such clear voices for each character whilst writing in this way is masterful, allowing for a bridge between reader and characters: it facilitates the reader’s sense of omniscience without distancing them from the plot or protagonists.
To Save the Man is a story about a cultural genocide, told by both the persecutors and persecuted. It is a tribute to all the lost victims, and survivors, of the assimilation programmes. This is a story about choices, courage, endurance, and of a people’s right to the land they call home.
April 16, 2025
The Indian consumes bit does not produce, copies but does not innovate—kills, thinks Miss Redbird, but does not destroy.
“You taught me language; and my profit on’t Is I know how to curse.”
What their school Father, Pratt, says is true—to equal the white man you have to learn his ways.
“It doesn’t matter what’s true”, Clarence days. “It’s what people believe.”
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened its doors in Pennsylvania in 1879 as the first off-reservation facility of its kind. Its objective was to train Indian children to assimilate into the English culture by changing their appearance and language. Headmaster Captain Richard Henry Pratt truly believed that in order to fulfil this objective he needed to kill off the Indian culture with his motto “To save the man, we must kill the Indian”. The Carlisle School was more like a modern day a conversion camp where young native Indians, both male and female, were often forcibly taken from their homes and stripped of all their heritage. They had to change how they wore their hair, they could no longer dress in their tribal clothes, and were absolutely forbidden, and often times punished for speaking anything but English. Captain Pratt believed this was necessary for the Indian to assimilate into the culture of the “more superior” white man.
The story alternates between the boarding school and the events leading up to the massacre at Wounded Knee. It was heartbreaking to imagine how scared these young people were to be at the school in the first place, then to begin hearing the rumors about the unrest on the reservations must have sent their anxiety to the next level. Many of them were too far from home to simply walk away. So they had decisions to make, did they stay and continue their education to help their families have a better future, or did they run away and make the dangerous journey back home to be with their families?
The subject material was hard to read. It is unfathomable that any race can feel superiority over another. Yet, the truth is this belief has been carried for hundreds of years, and man never seems to learn.
It was hard to follow so many overlapping story lines. Sometimes the author used quotation marks sometimes he did not (I am team quotation mark when there are this many characters to keep up with) So I often had to reread passages so I would be sure I knew who was talking. After about two-thirds of the book I was able to jump from thought to thought more easily, but the first part was definitely rough going. For that I give it 3.5 stars. But the subject material is raw and painful, and important to learn so it isn’t repeated. If you love historical fiction that teaches history, this is a book to read.
“You taught me language; and my profit on’t Is I know how to curse.”
What their school Father, Pratt, says is true—to equal the white man you have to learn his ways.
“It doesn’t matter what’s true”, Clarence days. “It’s what people believe.”
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened its doors in Pennsylvania in 1879 as the first off-reservation facility of its kind. Its objective was to train Indian children to assimilate into the English culture by changing their appearance and language. Headmaster Captain Richard Henry Pratt truly believed that in order to fulfil this objective he needed to kill off the Indian culture with his motto “To save the man, we must kill the Indian”. The Carlisle School was more like a modern day a conversion camp where young native Indians, both male and female, were often forcibly taken from their homes and stripped of all their heritage. They had to change how they wore their hair, they could no longer dress in their tribal clothes, and were absolutely forbidden, and often times punished for speaking anything but English. Captain Pratt believed this was necessary for the Indian to assimilate into the culture of the “more superior” white man.
The story alternates between the boarding school and the events leading up to the massacre at Wounded Knee. It was heartbreaking to imagine how scared these young people were to be at the school in the first place, then to begin hearing the rumors about the unrest on the reservations must have sent their anxiety to the next level. Many of them were too far from home to simply walk away. So they had decisions to make, did they stay and continue their education to help their families have a better future, or did they run away and make the dangerous journey back home to be with their families?
The subject material was hard to read. It is unfathomable that any race can feel superiority over another. Yet, the truth is this belief has been carried for hundreds of years, and man never seems to learn.
It was hard to follow so many overlapping story lines. Sometimes the author used quotation marks sometimes he did not (I am team quotation mark when there are this many characters to keep up with) So I often had to reread passages so I would be sure I knew who was talking. After about two-thirds of the book I was able to jump from thought to thought more easily, but the first part was definitely rough going. For that I give it 3.5 stars. But the subject material is raw and painful, and important to learn so it isn’t repeated. If you love historical fiction that teaches history, this is a book to read.
December 27, 2024
I am drawn to books that fill in the wide gaps in my study of American history, particularly when it comes to the ruthless slaughter of Native American Indians, both in body and culture. John Sayles’ novel To Save the Man brings the reader to a late nineteenth century western USA, with the buffalo dying out, Indians losing their land and left to a life of poverty on reservations and a US government intent on sending native children to schools that would wipe out their heritage and produce Americans.
One such school is the Carlisle School where the motto” Kill the Indian Save the Man,” says it all. The story follows the lives of many students and one particular teacher of Indian ancestry as they try to do what is necessary to survive a cruel and foreign environment, forget their families and learn a trade. My interest peaked at the description as I am keen to comprehend how an entire cultural genocide took place in the USA.
This is an important story of the school, the Wounded Knee massacre and the forgotten victims of the American western expansion. The book has a narrator who focuses on many characters. Sometimes it was difficult to keep them straight. The writing has long pieces of narrative prose interspersed with shorter pieces of dialog. Perhaps this would have worked better under the eye of a camera, John Sayles forte, where the description would be visible and the dialog sufficient. Ultimately, although my heart ached for the children and families torn apart and forever relegated to living or dying in a country that saw them as savages . I had difficulty getting a real feel for each individual and his/ her heritage . Life on the reservation is not a focus of this tale so I had no way to understand a compare in my mind what students left behind when they were forcibly removed from their homes.
That said, the subject matter and depth and detail of life at the school is too important to pass by. This is a book that needs to be read and a subject that needs to be taught in American schools. Three stars for a difficult but extremely worthwhile read. Thank you NetGalley and Melville House for an advance reader’s copy in exchange for this review. Look for this book on January 21, 2025 for a story that must be told.
One such school is the Carlisle School where the motto” Kill the Indian Save the Man,” says it all. The story follows the lives of many students and one particular teacher of Indian ancestry as they try to do what is necessary to survive a cruel and foreign environment, forget their families and learn a trade. My interest peaked at the description as I am keen to comprehend how an entire cultural genocide took place in the USA.
This is an important story of the school, the Wounded Knee massacre and the forgotten victims of the American western expansion. The book has a narrator who focuses on many characters. Sometimes it was difficult to keep them straight. The writing has long pieces of narrative prose interspersed with shorter pieces of dialog. Perhaps this would have worked better under the eye of a camera, John Sayles forte, where the description would be visible and the dialog sufficient. Ultimately, although my heart ached for the children and families torn apart and forever relegated to living or dying in a country that saw them as savages . I had difficulty getting a real feel for each individual and his/ her heritage . Life on the reservation is not a focus of this tale so I had no way to understand a compare in my mind what students left behind when they were forcibly removed from their homes.
That said, the subject matter and depth and detail of life at the school is too important to pass by. This is a book that needs to be read and a subject that needs to be taught in American schools. Three stars for a difficult but extremely worthwhile read. Thank you NetGalley and Melville House for an advance reader’s copy in exchange for this review. Look for this book on January 21, 2025 for a story that must be told.
December 3, 2024
To Save the Man portrays a segment of American history that isn't necessarily covered in much detail in our textbooks. John Sayles shares the experiences of several youths and young adults going to the Carlisle Indian School in the late 19th century where Indian children were taken from their homes and families and brutally forced to assimilate into white society. The story takes place in the period of time leading up to and following the massacre at Wounded Knee where the US Army killed hundreds of Lakota.. It was eye-opening and powerful to learn about the treatment of children in these schools as well as how quickly the "frontier" was changing and what this meant for the indigenous peoples living there. However, I found it difficult to follow the many overlapping stories and even the timeline. Perhaps it was the way the story was formatted/written - sometimes long, descriptive narratives of places and events mixed with short vignettes and images of various characters, some stories shared from one characters, other stories of characters retold through others. Perhaps this is a book-form of a movie since Sayles is a filmmaker. I'd be interested in seeing his movie as it might give me a better sense of what I missed when reading the book. Nevertheless the content of the book is important and sure to start some important conversations.
Many thanks to Melville House Publishing & NetGalley for the e-arc.
Many thanks to Melville House Publishing & NetGalley for the e-arc.
February 15, 2025
To Save the Man is a historical fiction novel appropriate for both adult and YA readers about the Carlisle Industrial School for Indians run by Captain Pratt with the goal of starving Native American culture by immersing their children in white American culture. It is a baptism by drowning. It is set along the time period of the Wounded Knee Massacre and includes the event (and those leading up to it) within the narrative, at first from afar, ultimately building to the final confrontation and aftermath. The narrative is frequently woven with historical primary sources, which at times is a bit confusing, but the timeline is fairly linear with the exception of a frame narrative for the beginning and end. The writing is fairly straightforward, true to the history. I learned a lot from reading this novel and from the research it inspired me to do on my own. The one flaw I can find is that it never attempts to use any Native American languages. For a book that focuses so heavily on the suppression of language at the school, I needed to see the language exist on the page. I feel it would have honored the cultures it means to illuminate more fully to do so.
Thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for the ARC!
Thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for the ARC!
February 23, 2025
This book was a little hard to get into: too many characters without a clear plan where they were going. But by the second month (Sayles' way of organizing the book) I was engaged with the native American boys at Carlisle, a school whose motto was "to save the man, kill the Indian." The authorities at the Carlisle school are historical with a mixed bag of motives. One teacher has such disgust for natives, while the commander is proud that some graduates have married white women and are earning their livings off the reservations. The boys' reaction to being at the school was heart-breaking, revealing what they were being asked to give up and how alien were the values they were being asked to embrace (land ownership and capitalism vs. shared territory and goods). I have always had an affinity for native American values, so I ached for the boys. When Sitting Bull is killed, so unnecessarily, and then a massacre follows at Wounded Knee, some boys at the school finally take a stand for their native culture over Carlisle, escaping the military regimentation and returning home to help their people. I like that the book ended with hope for some of these educated boys who were making a strong moral choice for their future.
April 1, 2025
First, I’m conflicted about the telling because John Sayles is not native and this feels like a story that belongs to native americans. (Then there is the part of me that also sees story telling as sometime maybe we all do and some better than others.)
Regardless.
We need more stories and voices around the Carlisle boarding schools which continued into the early 70s. What I liked were the shifting characters — I especially liked Miss Redwing, Grace, Antoine, Clarence, and Trouble. Also, their arcs were more solid — I could see them. Maybe this was part of Sayles’ plan — to make some of the white characters, specifically the soldiers, murkier and more like outlines of a character vs something tangible.
I read somewhere before starting the novel that he wrote some of the characters more nuanced — that you could see they wanted to do the right thing even if it was very, very wrong. Pratt falls into that category whereas someone like Miss Burgess boils over with loathing. There is no humanity in her, only a drive to extinguish.
It feels rough, unfinished, kind of like where the US is in addressing the deep wounds caused by the Carlisle schools. Unfinished.
Regardless.
We need more stories and voices around the Carlisle boarding schools which continued into the early 70s. What I liked were the shifting characters — I especially liked Miss Redwing, Grace, Antoine, Clarence, and Trouble. Also, their arcs were more solid — I could see them. Maybe this was part of Sayles’ plan — to make some of the white characters, specifically the soldiers, murkier and more like outlines of a character vs something tangible.
I read somewhere before starting the novel that he wrote some of the characters more nuanced — that you could see they wanted to do the right thing even if it was very, very wrong. Pratt falls into that category whereas someone like Miss Burgess boils over with loathing. There is no humanity in her, only a drive to extinguish.
It feels rough, unfinished, kind of like where the US is in addressing the deep wounds caused by the Carlisle schools. Unfinished.
January 16, 2026
Fictional account of life in and near the Carlisle Indian School and Pine Ridge at the time of the ghost dance and then the massacre. It effectively conveyed diversity, both demographic and of perspective, within the indigenous world, of course particularly connected to boarding schools but also in the larger intersection with dominant white society, and was refreshing in that there was room for more complexity within the boarding school experience - as I had read in a different book, there are some who claim Carlisle heritage with pride and pleasure, which does not diminish or contradict a simultaneous truth of boarding school trauma. I found the strategy of using dashes to end talking about a particular point of view to be a bit of an unnecessary and eventually distracting shortcut. It was absolutely a worthwhile entry on the shelf of anyone interested in nineteenth century Plains Indian experience as well as Indian boarding schools. I was reading it while also listening to The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, so there was a bit of a cognitive load in tracking exactly which of the overlapping narrative worlds I was dwelling in.
April 16, 2025
This novel combines two compelling stories of American Indian children sent away from their homes to Carlisle with the story of the Ghost Dancers and its murderous conclusion at Standing Rock reservation and Wounded Knee Creek.
There is more nuance to the story than one might expect. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded as a model of Indian boarding schools to come, but an elite version. Its purpose was to assimilate the Indian students entirely into the white world. Thus, the Indian is killed, but only metaphorically. The school was presented by its founder as an alternative to the more popular idea of extinction, the actual intentional killing of all remaining Indians.
Telling these two parallel stories necessitates a certain amount of back and forth. However, the author exacerbates this discontinuity by chopping up various stories literally one paragraph at a time. I found that this literary trick repeatedly dissipated dramatic momentum more than anything else.
Still, all in all, a worthy read.
There is more nuance to the story than one might expect. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded as a model of Indian boarding schools to come, but an elite version. Its purpose was to assimilate the Indian students entirely into the white world. Thus, the Indian is killed, but only metaphorically. The school was presented by its founder as an alternative to the more popular idea of extinction, the actual intentional killing of all remaining Indians.
Telling these two parallel stories necessitates a certain amount of back and forth. However, the author exacerbates this discontinuity by chopping up various stories literally one paragraph at a time. I found that this literary trick repeatedly dissipated dramatic momentum more than anything else.
Still, all in all, a worthy read.
November 18, 2025
I am only halfway through but feel compelled to comment. My direct ancestors were students at the Carlisle Indian school and future generations continued to live in the area. I, to some degree, experienced the ongoing sense of shame carried into modern times. I found the authors writing style difficult to follow at first with endlessly long sentences and abrupt changes of scenes. What I did love was how well he could describe each child’s reaction to events or what they observed from their perspective, based on their own tribal upbringing and culture. Example-hair was only cut when someone died. One young child sobbed when they cut his hair. I felt the research was solid. He used metaphors that made you feel you were in each kid’s head. I wanted to highlight and underline passages to reread later. I find this satisfying read about an important chapter in American history and in some ways relevant to today’s world.
March 18, 2025
Cinematic Masterpiece
There are few people who've won a National Book Award and are celebrated filmmakers, and John Sayles is one, if not the only one, of them.
"To Save the Man" is about the infamous Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, where Native Americans were sent to learn white ways and give up those of their tribe; the title comes from the school's credo that "To save the man, you must kill the Indian." The book tells its story through the eyes of various staff and students at different points in their Carlisle stays, with occasional forays out West to the Standing Rock reservation.
The book reminds me of Sayles' film, "Matewan," in its scope and imagery. Both that film and this are well worth seeking out.
There are few people who've won a National Book Award and are celebrated filmmakers, and John Sayles is one, if not the only one, of them.
"To Save the Man" is about the infamous Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, where Native Americans were sent to learn white ways and give up those of their tribe; the title comes from the school's credo that "To save the man, you must kill the Indian." The book tells its story through the eyes of various staff and students at different points in their Carlisle stays, with occasional forays out West to the Standing Rock reservation.
The book reminds me of Sayles' film, "Matewan," in its scope and imagery. Both that film and this are well worth seeking out.
March 27, 2025
I’m always a bit leery reading non-Native takes on this particular subject and topic (like many a dumb little white girl, I got burned by the super offensive Dear America on the Carlisle school), but this is really good. Clearly attentively researched, and very cinematic in its writing, with an awareness of the horrors being portrayed (and of the blinkered, genocidal ‘good intentions’ of the white people running these ‘schools’). I’ve been reading a fair bit lately about nineteenth century American apocalypticism, and this dwells very well on that aspect of its narrative in a way I found quite engaging.
April 10, 2025
This book offers a glimpse of the Carlisle boarding school for Indian children. “Kill the Indian; save the man.” The children were not allowed to speak their language or observe their customs. They were taught white man skills: shoeing horses, farming, baking, making shoes, and much more. Many people felt the Indians should all be killed. It is a cruel time in US history.
The book is slow and jumps from one student to another and then off in other directions. The lead up to and massacre at Wounded Knee are covered. It resulted in confusion and sorrow among Indians.
Indians still do not have equal rights on reservations and continue to be ignored. This is a book worth reading.
The book is slow and jumps from one student to another and then off in other directions. The lead up to and massacre at Wounded Knee are covered. It resulted in confusion and sorrow among Indians.
Indians still do not have equal rights on reservations and continue to be ignored. This is a book worth reading.
April 21, 2025
This novel is set mostly at the Carlisle Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania during the fall and winter of 1889-90, with shorter sections relating events surrounding the ghost dance movement occurring concurrently on the Northern Plains. The strength of the account is that it provides a range of perspectives of both Indian students and school staff. The downside is that the narrative is so divided and the portions given to each perspective are so short that it's hard to get to know each character fully. We do see clearly, however, how misguided good intentions, skewed by ethnocentrism, can go so wrong. It's a pretty sad story, and gets progressively sadder as it goes along.
April 25, 2025
Got more from Jim Thorpe's autobiography. Glad Sayles did not make a movie. The work was informative but very dry.
The Carlisle School was a sad spectrum on making the Proud and Brave Native American be subject to the white man's craving. Very sad and disgusting as it vanished a race and its culture and more importantly the tribal members.
Another sad, disgusting dark eye on America. Lest we forget or chose to ignore eugenics. Hitler was infatuated with sent high level Nazi's to America to learn how to eradicate people with disabilities. Adolf took one leap forward to exterminate the Jewish faith.
The Carlisle School was a sad spectrum on making the Proud and Brave Native American be subject to the white man's craving. Very sad and disgusting as it vanished a race and its culture and more importantly the tribal members.
Another sad, disgusting dark eye on America. Lest we forget or chose to ignore eugenics. Hitler was infatuated with sent high level Nazi's to America to learn how to eradicate people with disabilities. Adolf took one leap forward to exterminate the Jewish faith.
January 2, 2025
Limbo and Lone Star are two of my favorite movies and I enjoy many of Sayles' earlier cinematic efforts. From what I remember, his later movies suffered from a lack of focus on particular characters and that seems to be the case with his latest book. His intention of shining a light on Native American life toward the end of the 19th century is honorable, but the constant shifting of character made this book less than palatable. I don't think it helped that I read a galley on Kindle. This may have worked better as short stories.
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