The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

by Peter Cozzens

In a sweeping narrative, Peter Cozzens tells the story of the wars and negotiations that destroyed native ways of life as the American nation continued its expansion onto traditional tribal lands after the civil war.

Cozzens illuminates the encroachment experienced by the tribes and the tribal conflicts over whether to fight or make peace, and explores the squalid lives of soldiers posted to the frontier and the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies.

As the action moves from Kansas and Nebraska to the Southwestern desert to the Dakotas and the Pacific Northwest, we encounter a cast of fascinating characters, including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of other military and political figures, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and Red Cloud. For the first time The Earth Is Weeping brings them all together in the fullest account to date of how the West was won - and lost.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Native American, War, Native Americans, Westerns

791 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 25, 2016

About the author

Peter Cozzens is the award-winning author of seventeen books on the American Civil War and the West. Cozzens is also a retired Foreign Service Officer.

His most recent book is A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). Cozzens's next book is Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West (Knopf: September 2025).

Cozzens's penultimate book, Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation, was published by Knopf in October 2020. It won the Western Writers of America Spur Award and was a finalist for the George Washington Prize.

His The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West was published by Alfred A. Knopf in October 2016. Amazon selected it as a Best Book of November 2016. Smithsonian Magazine chose it as one of the ten best history books of 2016. It has won multiple awards, including the Gilder-Lehrman Prize for the finest book on military history published worldwide. It also was a London Times book of the year and has been translated into several languages, including Russian and Chinese.

All of Cozzens' books have been selections of the Book of the Month Club, History Book Club, and/or the Military Book Club.

Cozzens’ This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga and The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga were both Main Selections of the History Book Club and were chosen by Civil War Magazine as two of the 100 greatest works ever written on the conflict.

The History Book Club called his five-volume Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars "the definitive resource on the military struggle for the American West."

His Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign was a Choice "Outstanding Academic Title" for 2009.

He was a frequent contributor to the New York Times "Disunion" series, and he has written articles for Smithsonian Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, True West, America's Civil War, Civil War Times Illustrated, and MHQ, among other publications.

In 2002 Cozzens received the American Foreign Service Association’s highest award, given annually to one Foreign Service Officer for exemplary moral courage, integrity, and creative dissent.

Cozzens is a member of the Advisory Council of the Lincoln Prize, the Western Writers Association, the Authors' Guild, and the Army and Navy Club.

Cozzens and his wife Antonia Feldman reside in Maryland.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It was the fourth day after Christmas in the Year of Our Lord 1890. When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN.”
- Dee Brown, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

“A newspaperman once asked George Crook, one of the preeminent generals in the West, how he felt about his job. It was a hard thing, he replied, to be forced to do battle with Indians who more often than not were in the right. ‘I do not wonder, and you will not either, that when Indians see their wives and children starving and their last source of supplies cut off, they go to war. And then we are sent out there to kill them. It is an outrage. All tribes tell the same story. They are surrounded on all sides, the game is destroyed or driven away, they are left to starve, and there remains but one thing for them to do – fight while they can…’”
- Peter Cozzens, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

Given how long this review is going to be, I’ll state the conclusion up front: Peter Cozzens The Earth is Weeping is one of the finest books on the Indian Wars I’ve ever read.

Actually, it’s the finest.

To that end, I’m comfortable comparing it to Dee Brown’s classic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Though it does not have the polemical force of Brown’s work – because it is not a polemic – The Earth is Weeping matches it in terms of gripping storytelling, and surpasses it in terms of historical research and rigor.

I can’t recommend it enough, whether you are a longtime student of the Indian Wars, or a newcomer to this quintessential American saga.

***

The Earth is Weeping is a narrative history of the Indian Wars of the American West. The first chapter is devoted to a sweeping survey that serves more to set the table for events to come. It covers, in broad strokes, the Grattan Massacre in 1854, the First Sioux War of 1855, the Dakota Uprising of 1862, and the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. Cozzens sketches these events, but does not give them a thorough airing. I would have loved it if we had, but we can’t have everything.

The true starting point is 1866, with Red Cloud’s War along the Bozeman Trail. In December of that year, 81 soldiers (along with a couple shortsighted civilians, hoping to test their new Henry rifles) were slaughtered by a Lakota-Cheyenne coalition in the cold and snow of present-day Wyoming. The tale ends in 1890, at another vicious winter bloodletting, this one along a creek called the Wounded Knee. Between those bloody bookends is a tale that deserves the appellation “epic” given in the subtitle.

***

This is primarily a military history, focusing on the battles and massacres, the raids and ambushes, that marked America’s post-Civil War westward surge.

The battles of the Indian Wars do not compare to other 19th century conflicts, and certainly not the titanic clashes between Union and Confederacy in the American Civil War. Many fights were marked by a lot of shooting, a lot of yelling, and relatively few casualties. The six-hour fight on the Rosebud, for instance, resulted in a total of around 200 casualties for both sides (using high estimates). That’s a couple minutes in Devil’s Den at Gettysburg. But Civil War battles were marked by their impersonality. Huge masses faced off and fired blindly in smoke so thick that officers got on their hands and knees to see below it. The Indian Wars, by contrast, were often intimate in their violence. There is a Homeric aspect to the combat, as named participants face off in lethal individual contests.

Take, for instance, the Fetterman Fight, where American troopers plunged into a cleverly-laid trap and were wiped out:

Resistance from the infantry might have been minimal; the young Oglala chief American Horse said that many soldiers appeared to be paralyzed with fear. It soon turned into the sort of close-order combat the Lakotas called “stirring gravy.” As infantrymen fell with arrow wounds, dismounted warriors descended upon them, first counting coup and then smashing their skulls with war clubs. American Horse landed [Captain William Judd] Fetterman a disabling blow and then cut his throat, while the officer who had bragged about taking Red Cloud’s scalp shot himself in the temple. The infantry and the cavalry fought and died apart. [Lieutenant George Washington] Grummond fell early, decapitating a warrior with his sword before a blow from a war club dropped [him]…

Or the murder of General R.S. Canby by the Modoc Captain Jack:

Captain Jack snapped his revolver in Canby’s face, but the cap popped harmlessly. As Canby stood frozen, Captain Jack cocked the hammer again and shot him through his left eye. To everyone’s amazement, the mortally wounded general rose to his feet and ran forty or fifty yards until Captain Jack and the warrior Ellen’s Man caught up with him. Ellen’s Man shoved his rifle against Canby’s head and fired, and Captain Jack stabbed Canby in the throat for good measure.

Though not as famous as Hector facing off with Achilles, it is just as dramatic.

***

By starting in 1866, Cozzens isn’t as comprehensive as Dee Brown. The Long Walk of the Navajo, for instance, does not make the cutoff.

That said, this is a big book, with 467 pages of text, and he is able to cover a lot of ground. Some of it is familiar. The name George Armstrong Custer pops up a lot. Other stories, though, have been sadly under-told until now. Cozzens devotes an entire chapter to the nasty little Modoc war in the lava beds of California and Oregon. Another chapter is given to the Utes, who were doomed by a mentally unstable Indian Agent. Cozzens also finds time to relate the obscure Marias River Massacre, in which a drunk cavalry officer butchered a band of innocent Piegans, running up a blood-tally comparable to Sand Creek.

There are tradeoffs, of course. Quanah Parker, the Comanche, and the Red River War only rank one chapter, while the saga of the Apache is given at least three dedicated sections (covering Cochise, Victorio, and Geronimo). This is to be expected, unless you want a thousand page book.

For the record, I wish this had been a thousand pages.

***

Cozzens does not neglect the shameful diplomatic relations between whites and Indians. He works this thread into every single chapter. Surprisingly, given how good he is at the military side, my favorite part of the book might have been the last two chapters on the final collapse of the Lakota. The Lakota were never conquered in battle; instead, they were riven by internecine power struggles stoked by the whites. “Peace chiefs” such as Red Cloud (once a ferocious warrior who held up his bargain after the Laramie Treaty of 1868) were pitted against “hostiles” such as Sitting Bull, who still clung to the old ways. The devious results will be familiar to anyone who has read A Song of Ice and Fire. It is a telling demonstration of the effectiveness of divide-and-conquer that Crazy Horse was stabbed while held by his old friend, Little Big Man, and that Sitting Bull was murdered by Lakota police.

***

Though it’s not Cozzens’s focus, ample space is given to the failures of Grant’s well-intentioned but fatally flawed “Peace Policy,” the graft and corruption of the Office of Indian Affairs, the consistently broken or unfulfilled treaties, and the final indignity of the Dawes Act. Cozzens avoids easy stereotypes, and refuses to categorize things as “good” or “evil.” Men like General Nelson Miles are presented in all their contradictions, the venality, naked ambition, and mercilessness sitting right alongside pity and solicitude.

***

My criticisms are half-hearted and minor. I wish Cozzens had more space to devote to the differences between the individual tribes. It’s asking a bit much to request anthropological discussions on top of the military and political history that is provided, but I’m greedy. I also disliked Cozzens’s habit of – at times – not naming individuals within the narrative. Too often he refers to “an Indian warrior” or a “young officer” or something vague of that nature, rather than simply using that person’s name. I would often have to flip to the Notes to try to discern who Cozzens was talking about. For example, in the excerpt on the Fetterman Fight, the arrogant officer who killed himself was Fred Brown. Is it that hard to give him a name?

***

Since this is narrative history, Cozzens is presenting his interpretation of events. He is not weighing or analyzing evidence. This will be jarring to some students of the Indian Wars. Take the Battle of the Little Big Horn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand. By my last count, there are approximately one billion theories about this fight. Cozzens does not have the time or inclination to parse the near-infinite premises. Instead, he presents his single version of how things went down. I’ve already noticed some Custer-pedants dismissing the entire work because Cozzens does not adhere to their personal views. Now, I don’t agree with Cozzens on every aspect. But he always remains within the evidence, and does a laudable job avoiding the romances and myths that surround the American West.

***

Did I mention there are 19 maps, 3 different photo insets, and a timeline? Christmas came early with this volume.

***

Slavery and the dispossession of the Indians are the two foundations upon which America was built. This is a discomfiting reality. This discomfort results in pushback. Accordingly, some writers and historians have attempted to rationalize the actions of soldiers, settlers, and politicians during America’s western push. Others have tried to minimize the damage done to the tribes. I’ve read books arguing that massacres perpetrated by whites weren’t massacres at all, such as Gregory Michno’s crusade against Sand Creek. I’ve seen a crude tu quoque defense positing that Indian depredations were as bad as white depredations, and that the two cancel out. I’ve also seen it written that we should spare no sorrow for the Indians, since they were engaging in warfare long before the whites arrived.

Dee Brown’s masterpiece was written in response to this nonsense. The Earth is Weeping arrives at the same place in much more subtle fashion. Cozzens doesn’t need to argue – or lecture, using off-putting academic phrases – he only needs to tell.

By the end, we have witnessed cultures obliterated root and branch, not just annihilated bodily in their sleeping villages, but as distinct civilizations as well. Land taken. Food sources destroyed. Traditional patterns disrupted. Social, political, and religious structures dismantled. Children essentially kidnapped and forced into assimilatory schools. The long continental struggle that ended on the red-stained snow at Wounded Knee contains all the drama that Shakespeare and the Greeks ever sought. There is bloodshed and betrayal; there are heroes, villains, and cowards; there are chases and escapes; there are lies and deceits; and there is tragedy, the soul of the plot.

[David Eppenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the past few years I have read several books dealing with individual Native Americans or with some of the theaters of operation in the conflicts with native Americans. Most of these books were excellent but this book offers the most comprehensive recitation of the events occurring during the decades long struggles between the Indians and the encroachment of white settlers and the Army. Other books I've read offered more details regarding the specific events occurring in specific limited areas of these conflicts and more detail regarding the participants but this book covered every aspect of all the various areas and tribes involved in conflicts with the whites. Considering the scope of this book the accomplishment is remarkable as it is by no means cursory or abbreviated in its treatment of any area of review. For anyone looking for a book providing an overview of the entire history of our Indian wars I can think of no better choice than this volume. However, it should be noted that this book is like all the others covering this chapter of our history; it is sad, disturbing, tragic, brutal, and disappointing. There were no heroes and no innocents in this history. Both sides were deserving of blame or at least shared responsibility for the way events transpired. Reading the history of this era I have tried to imagine a better, less tragic, way things could have been handled. As yet I have not been able to think of one when you consider the time, the circumstances, and the nature of people white and red. The Indian wars are probably one of the most shameful periods of our history.

[Dmitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Our nation is melting away like snow on the hills, while your people are like blades of grass in the spring." - Red Cloud

************

This is a well researched military-political history of the American Indian Wars. The author Peter Cozzens has written for over thirty years mainly on the American Civil War. He won many awards, including for this 2016 book. It is not only told from the side of the army. Cozzens does a good job covering native tribes, people and customs. Federal policy and public opinion influences are included. It's a clear look at the late 19th century push westward. Cozzens argues the factions within tribes and wars with other tribes didn't allow a unified front to incursions by the army.

During the Civil War (1861-65) Lincoln signed a Homestead Act granting free land in the west to whoever could settle it. A delegation of Great Plains natives visited Washington to sue for peace with the Great Father. These were Cheyenne and Arapaho of Kansas, Comanche and Kiowa of Texas. Further north the Sioux were split into the Lakota and Dakota tribes. Squeezed into shrinking lands they attacked settlers and wagon trains. After the 1862 Dakota War the tribe was relocated from Minnesota to North Dakota, their movement circumscribed by the army.

White immigrants in Kansas and Colorado were alarmed by the events and presence of native americans. The governor formed a regiment to kill hostile Cheyenne. Further raiding led to the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 where 200 native men, women and children were murdered. Public opinion was inflamed in the east. In the west braves went on the warpath. Later actions like the 1870 Marias Massacre in Montana and the 1873 Modoc War in Oregon killed similar numbers of natives burning their lodge tents and hanging any leaders left alive by the army.

In the Red Cloud War of 1866 Montana gold rush miners trespassed into Lakota territory. A treaty permitted passage on the Bozeman Trail with the promise no forts would be built. The agreement was violated and Indian raids harassed the army. The government capitulated and granted land in South Dakota for a Lakota home. The Civil War over generals Grant, Sherman and Sheridan took posts in the west. The replacement of barrel loading muskets with repeating rifles, called 'big talk guns' by the Sioux, spoke loud and clear of a firepower advantage by the army.

When Grant was elected president in 1869 the generals had anticipated a more aggressive policy. Instead Grant pursued a peace policy appointing a Seneca native as Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Quakers to Indian Bureau field offices. The old treaty system was scrapped for a new system where natives were wards of the state. Senate oversight ended and power was put in the hands of the president and his cabinet. Indians would be moved to large reservations and taught the civilized ways of farming. Any outside were seen as hostile and would be dealt with by the army.

East coast settlers moved into Kansas and hunted buffalo, selling meat to the army and skins to tanneries. In a year four million buffalo were slaughtered. As herds thinned hunters moved south to lands reserved for Cheyenne and Arapaho, then further into Kiowa and Comanche territory. Reservation life deteriorated. Alcohol was traded for ponies or ponies simply stolen. Food promised for peace never came and natives starved. A medicine man united Comanches with Cheyenne. In the 1874 Buffalo War southern plains Indians were defeated by the army.

Apache and Yavapais raids were met with vigilante justice in 1871 Arizona. To comply with peace policy goals rival tribes were relocated to concentrated reservations often on the worst land. Cochise made peace while Geronimo vowed to avenge dead family and friends. By 1876 Apaches had been divested of ancestral homes. Geronimo fought guerilla wars and raids against Americans and Mexicans, soldiers and settlers for thirty five years. Capture and surrender was invariably followed by escape and return to war. It ended in his 1886 imprisonment by the army.

Sitting Bull, holy man and chief of the Lakota, and Crazy Horse, warrior and lone wolf, were icons of the resistance; Indians who refused reservations. Colonel Custer returned after wars with the Cheyenne to clear the region. Gold was found in the Black Hills and miners rushed in. Railways surveyed for train tracks across Montana hunting grounds. Steamboats searched the Yellowstone River for fort sites. Offers to buy land were rejected by the Sioux and Grant chose war over peace. In 1876 Custer was killed at Little Big Horn during a invasion by the army.

Nez Perce were fishers and hunters of the pacific northwest. They lived peacefully alongside white settlers. When gold was found in 1860 their land rights were revoked from an 1855 treaty. In 1873 Grant gave land and took it back in 1875. Natives near settlers would have no rest until their removal to a reservation. Facing orders to leave they burned ranches and stole livestock. Cavalry sent to catch them were killed. In 1877 Chief Joseph's tribe fled to join Sitting Bull in Canada. Chased for two thousand miles, half his warriors were shot before his capture by the army.

In 1887 President Cleveland signed a bill opening huge tracts of land on Sioux reservations to homesteaders. Natives were to be allotted individual plots for farming and grazing, their surplus land sold off. As rations were cut rustlers and horse thieves ran off. Epidemics of European diseases decimated the old and young. A messianic ritual arose to free the earth from whites. Settlers feared the Ghost Dance meant war, and the cavalry was called in. Sitting Bull was killed in his home and the Lakota taken prisoners. At Wounded Knee in 1890 they were massacred by the army.

In addition to harrowing narratives of campaigns and battles Cozzens gives vivid character sketches of natives, settlers, soldiers and civilians. There are first hand accounts from immigrant and Indian combatants. Descriptions of shooting and scalping, although told in gruesome detail, do not overwhelm the historical context. It's a balanced view but there's no doubt who the victims and vanquished were. Cozzens is not an apologist for military conquest of native lands. Violence was used by both sides yet the Indian wars were begun and won by the army.

[Jay Schutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much has been written and spoken about the slavery problem in the history of the United States. But to me, in my opinion, the problem of what to do about the Native American Indian was by far the most insoluble dilemma.
Four years in writing, this award-winning book is an excellent account of the brutal Indian Wars of the American West. Extensively researched and chronologically laid out, it tells the story of a proud people and the tragic end of their way of life as they wanted to live it. It also includes many pictures of the major players in this dark period of American history.
I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in American military history and to those who would like to understand what it is like to have your culture wiped out for the sake of progress.

[Charlie Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

La tierra llora

«No ha habido nunca un hombre blanco que no odiara a los indios, y no ha habido nunca un verdadero indio que no odiara al hombre blanco»
Toro Sentado.

Libro sobre el desalojo de los indios americanos de las tierras donde habitaban. Las guerras indias del oeste americano ocuparon buena parte de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX.



El plan del gobierno de Estados Unidos era el de despojar de sus tierras a todos los indios. Al principio reduciéndoles sus territorios, luego haciéndolos todavía más pequeños para mezclarlos con otras tribus enemigas haciendo su vida imposible.
En muchos casos las raciones de alimentos no llegaban haciendo pasar hambre a los recluidos en ellas y sin posibilidad de cazar.

«El Gran Padre nos envía regalos y quiere que le vendamos la carretera —declaró con rabia Nube Roja— pero, antes de que los indios contesten sí o no, el Jefe Blanco va con los soldados a robar la carretera».


Nube Roja

Siempre con engaños, los indios no entendían las leyes de los blancos y estos se encargaban de ser ambiguos en sus tratos para luego romperlos sin ruborizarse.

Se aprovecharon de las rivalidades entre las diferentes tribus para controlarlas. Los Crown y Pawnees eran enemigos de los Sioux. El ejército usaba exploradores de esas tribus para atacar a los rebeldes Sioux. Los colaboradores tenían en un principio trato de favor en sus reservas. Es solo un ejemplo porque en todo el Oeste la mitad de los indios colaboraban con los militares para neutralizar ya sea a gente de su propia tribu como de otras rivales. Evidentemente bajo amenazas o promesas falsas.
Los destrozaron, les quitaron el orgullo, los hicieron humillarse con engaños y falsas promesas.

«El Gobierno nos hizo muchas promesas —le dijo a un amigo blanco—, más de las que puedo recordar, pero solo cumplió una; prometió arrebatarnos la tierra, y lo hizo».

Las órdenes del presidente y los generales Sherman y Sheridan eran claras, hay que cortar cualquier rebelión, los indios deben estar controlados en las reservas. Y a los más problemáticos alejarlos de sus tierras.

La cosa podría haber sido peor (todavía) si no hubiera habido militares como Crook o Miles que al menos intentaron comprender al indio, usar cierta mano izquierda y hacer la vista gorda en algún caso. Esto les supuso problemas con sus mandos superiores.


Toro Sentado

Se cuenta la vida de grandes jefes indios, leyendas que son parte de la historia como Nube Roja, Caballo Loco y Toro Sentado entre los grandes jefes Sioux. Cochise, Victorio y el gran Gerónimo entre los chiricahuas de la Apacheria. Hay unos cuantos más, todos con situaciones de engaños, mentiras, falsas acusaciones que acaban en asesinatos y revueltas sin que el indio lo buscase pero que siempre es encontrado culpable.

Hace muchos años leí "Enterrad mi corazón en Wounded Knee" de Dee Brown que lo publicó en 1970 tratando el mismo período. Ese libro supuso un hito porque nunca se había tratado ese tema con tanta claridad, claro que fue cien años después de las guerras indias. Hace tanto que lo leí que no lo recordaba bien.

Este es más actual, intenta ser comprensivo con las razones del desalojo de los indios ante la inevitable expansión de Estados Unidos, pero no deja títere con cabeza a la hora de denunciar el racismo, odio y expolio que sufrieron los indios.
Cualquiera de los dos libros son excelentes para conocer la historia de la conquista del Oeste americano.


Gerónimo, un verdadero dolor de cabeza para Crook en Arizona y México

«La rendición final de Gerónimo y su reducido grupo se consiguió solo gracias a los chiricahuas que permanecieron fieles al Gobierno. Por su lealtad los han recompensado del mismo modo, con la prisión en una tierra extraña —afirmó Crook—. No hay página más ignominiosa en la historia de nuestras relaciones con los indios americanos —aseveró el capitán Bourke—, que la que oculta la traición infligida contra los chiricahuas que confiaron en la lealtad de nuestro pueblo».

[Dan Lutts · Rating 5 out of 5]

In April 1863, Chief Lean Bear of the Southern Cheyennes met with President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln told him that the only way the Indians could survive the migration of whites to the Indian lands in the Great Plains was to become "civilized" and farm their land on their reservations like the white people. Lincoln gave Lean Bear a bronzed-copper peace medal as a sign of friendship and papers he signed proclaiming Lean Bear's friendship with the whites.

In 1864, Colonel John Chivington used questionable claims that the Cheyennes were stealing cattle to move against them. He ordered his men to kill whatever Cheyennes they saw. They saw Chief Lean Bear. Secure in Lincoln's words of friendship, Lean Bear urged his horse toward the cavalrymen, holding up his peace medal to show his friendship. Chivington and his men shot the chief full of holes.

This startling incident begins Peter Cozzens' epic book, The Earth Is Weeping, which details the bloody fighting between the Indians of the Great Plains and the whites who were pushing into their lands from the eastern part of the country. What is really interesting is that both groups were migrants. Beginning in the late 17th century, the whites had pushed out the original Indian inhabitants of the eastern part of the continent and those Indians, in turn, had pushed out the original Indian inhabitants of the Great Plains.

Unlike Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Cozzens unflinchingly gives both points of view as he describes the bloody battles and the incidents that led up to them, beginning in 1862 with the Dakota Sioux Uprising in Minnesota and ending in 1890 with the bloody Indian massacre at Wounded Knee. Some of the battles were started deliberately by one side or the other. Others resulted from miscommunications between Indians and whites. And a few were unleashed by the actions of incompetent, greedy, and unscrupulous reservation agents who saw their job as a way of making money by not giving the reservation Indians their full allotment of food and other goods.

Some Indians ended up living on the reservations and farming like white people, but their becoming "civilized" didn't help them much. The whites kept wanting more and more land, which kept decreasing the size of the reservations, or shunted the Indians off their reservations to live on reservations in other areas or states. Other Indians preferred to live their traditional lives on what they considered was their land while the whites maneuvered to force them off the land so they could claim it as their own.

The Indians were the superior fighters because they valued fighting. Boys in many tribes began training as warriors when they were 5 or 6 years old. Men won their place in their society through their fighting skills. One problem, though, was that the enemies they fought were other tribes, which prevented the Indians from presenting a united front against the white encroachment.

The cavalry were the complete opposite. As a kid, I grew up watching TV Westerns, and oftentimes the cavalry would come galloping to the rescue, bugles blaring. So it was eye opening for me to learn that most of the cavalrymen came from the dregs of society and, along with many of their officers, were often drunk. The only solid, dependable cavalry units were the four regiments of African-American Buffalo Soldiers.

I found it surprising how often the Indians gave up land to prevent a war and how the settlers and government were never satisfied, but always wanted more. Finally, though, the Indians would have enough and retaliate. But, in the end, they were doomed to defeat because the various tribes were never able to put up a united front. Instead, tribes or factions within a tribe would ally themselves with the government and fight their fellow Indians.

I also found it surprising how many cavalry officers hated what they were doing and sometimes disobeyed orders. For instance, General George Crook was always concerned about the Indians' welfare, even if he had to lie to them. And General Nelson Miles had been ordered by President Grover Cleveland to kill or capture Geronimo. Instead, Miles disobeyed orders and negotiated with him.

Cozzens doesn't whitewash what people on both sides did, but describes their actions – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Earth Is Weeping is an incredible book.

[Diamond Cowboy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book of the plite of the Native American peoples. It gives a very simpathetic look at how the Native Americans were treated.
I recommend this book to all.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was young, THE book to read on the various American Indian wars was Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. Everyone read it. It was one of those rare books that come along at point in history (1970, Vietnam, general civil unrest) that captures the imagination of an entire country. It was time and place thing.

Peter Cozzens, in his prologue, while acknowledging the passionate and elegant writing of Dee Brown, takes some issue with Brown's one-sided focus on the victimhood of the Indians. That sounds harsher as a statement than it is in execution. By book's end, you are still faced with the pathetic, and very avoidable, tragedy at Wounded Knee. By this point in history (1890), the very existence of the various tribes seems in doubt. Gone are the free riding warriors of the plains, hemmed in now by soldiers, towns, fences, and railroads. The warfare (often just massacres), sporadic in nature, was usually brutal, and by both sides. The Indians, usually outnumbered, more than held their own against U.S. troops (who were often poorly led raw recruits).

For the U.S. it would be the sheer numbers of settlers, coupled with a crushing anti-Indian policy, that would "win" the West. For the Indians, and this is a point of emphasis by Cozzens, their demise was guaranteed by their factiousness. They were often their own worst enemies. Essentially Indian vs. Indian. True, but given what they were up against, this seems a distinction without much of a difference. Greater unity may have bought time, but not much. Still, Cozzens is right to point these inner divisions, and he sticks with it throughout the book. I'm not sure that "The Earth is Weeping" is a replacement for "Bury My Heart," but they're two different books. I think they complement each other. Cozzens has written (beautifully) a standard history. Dee Brown's effort is an indictment. A timeless and still necessary one.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a nutshell this is a considerably less moving version of Bury My heart at Wounded Knee. Early on the author disparages Dee Brown's book for making no effort at offering a historical balance. Though there is some truth in this statement it's a statement you can make about any individual historical perspective. At the end of the day Dee Brown's book is much more powerful and anything Peter Cozzens adds in the way of detail didn't for me amount to much in terms of altering the 'historical balance' of Bury My heart. That said it was nevertheless a good read.

[Dax · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Earth is Weeping' has the widest scope of any book on the Indian Wars I have yet read. This is both a positive and a negative. It makes for a great introductory work, but Cozzens is forced to rush through some aspects of the conflicts for the sake of page count. The Sioux Wars are well covered, but the Comanche, Nez Perce and even Apache conflicts leave the reader wanting more. I recommend SC Gwynne's 'Empire of the Summer Moon' for a deeper dive on Quanah Parker and the Comanches, while Hutton's 'The Apache Wars' has now jumped up my tbr list. Bill Vollmann's novel on the Nez Perce war, 'The Dying Grass', seems to be historically accurate and is a wonderful novel.

Cozzens is to be commended for this work. As far as I can tell, he does his best to objectively lay out the facts of each conflict as best he can. Start with this book and see where your interests take you as you dive into the Indian Wars.

[Alan Tomkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly detailed, always fascinating, and utterly gripping account of the various Indian wars throughout the American west in the last half of the nineteenth century. It's a lot to cover, and the author does an impressive job. I'm sure each conflict alone could be the subject of a very interesting history book, but we get the overall history in an organized fashion focusing on different regions in the West in turn. Told primarily from the perspective of the various tribes and the U.S. military officers charged with alternately keeping the peace, and later enforcing U.S. Indian Bureau policies, the motivations, misunderstandings, and cultural aspects of all sides are thoroughly explained. The nefarious role of white miners, gun and whiskey dealers, real estate speculators, and corrupt agents is given plenty of coverage. Left out, though, or dealt with only in passing, are the American settlers and long suffering Mexican peasants who also suffered. The rivalries and historic animosities between the various tribes is mentioned, but not explored as thoroughly as in other works, such as S.C. Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon. I feel that is an important aspect of such history, as it explains why some tribes and bands so readily and with great gusto allied themselves with American troops against other Indians. It can also help dispel the naive mythology with which many modern day Americans regard all Indians, as if they were all one cohesive, peaceful, pastoral people. They didn't suddenly become the world's fiercest warriors only when white settlers and soldiers appeared on the scene. They had been violently clashing and warring with other tribes for centuries, fighting over hunting grounds, enslaving and torturing historic rivals with no compunctions about it whatsoever. That said, it is a tragedy of history that by 1891 there was no longer any room for any Indians in the American west except for what the federal government was inclined to allow, and all tribes had been made wards of the government, their cultures systematically dismantled and suppressed. U.S. Indian policy was often formulated in callous ignorance and nearly always botched in implementation, through either incompetence or corruption. This book is excellent narrative history, well organized and unfolding like high drama. If you are a fan or student of the Civil War, you will be familiar with many of the cast: Generals such as Sherman, Sheridan, Hancock, Howard, and many others. And you will be introduced to all the incredible Native American leaders such as Cochise, Victorio, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Chief Joseph, and countless others. American history is complex, thrilling, tragic, and fascinating; and this book does an excellent job of relating an important era in our nation's unique saga.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book starts out with a statement from the author that suggests that the book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee has been the only substantial book about Indian history for many years. But he asserts that book was told solely from the point of view of the Indian and is thus biased. His book on the other hand has used primary source material that allows him to present native American history more accurately. The last quarter of this book is footnotes making it clear he has tried to back up his claim.

I would say this book is about 80% about native Americans fighting white settlers and US Army's. You can't paint an entire people with a single broad brush. There were good and bad Indians and good and bad white men. They are named in this book. But let's be real. Native Americans made their homes on the North American continent before all the rest of us came here. They were pushed off their land over and over and over. Doesn't that make it pretty clear who the bad guys were?

There is an incredible amount of blood shed in this book. Apparently President Grant tried to treat the Indians well. Others at many levels of government also occasionally tried to be just and fair. But the country has still wound up where it is today with Indians being in fairly desperate circumstances.

The following paragraph comes at the end of the book. It does pretty much wrap things up. I felt quite pummeled by the time I got to the end of the book.

"Those times seemed but a distant memory. In fact, the transformation of the Lakota world, and of the Indian West, had come in the blink of an eye. Less than a generation had passed since Red Cloud had won his war on the Bozeman Trail forts but then gradually lost the peace. The Lakotas had held the Crow lands they had conquered for less than a decade. It had been just fifteen years since the great but ultimately Pyrrhic Indian victory at the Little Bighorn. Now nothing remained. The Lakotas, the Cheyennes, the Arapahos, the Nez Perces, the Utes, the Modocs, the Apaches, and even some Texan-hating Kiowas and Comanches had tried to coexist amicably with the white man, but he would not be peaceably contained. Tribes had divided bitterly over the issue of war or peace. The Indians who had gone to war against the government had usually done so reluctantly, and they had lost their land and their way of life anyway. Accommodation had failed. War had failed. And the bullet-riven Ghost Shirts buried with their wearers in the mass grave on the lone knoll above Wounded Knee Creek were ample proof that religion too had failed the Indians. There was no room left for the Indians in the West but what the government saw fit to permit them. One elderly Lakota chief who had witnessed the march of events from the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851 to the tragedy at Wounded Knee four decades later saw nothing remarkable in what had transpired. “The [government] made us many promises,” he told a white friend, “more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.”

[Colleen Browne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would actually give this book a 3 and a half. There were certainly characteristics of the book that compelled me to rate what might otherwise have received 5 stars, this lower rating. First, it is well written and researched, the writing flows, and the prose keeps the reader engaged. The reason for the less than perfect score was the perspective of the author which seemed to be one that gave the ultimate responsibility for the bloodbath that took place in the country to bad policy, incompetent people, and the government not responding properly. But he also seemed at times to find equal blame to Native Americans and white people for what happened. He seemed to ignore the fact that it was not Native Americans who invaded Europe, lie to the people, push them out of the way and if they resisted kill them. That would be what Europeans did in this country. When Native Americans reacted violently, it was usually because they had been lied to and swindled- yet again. The author even attempts to make the argument that both Natives and Europeans were immigrants. The notion is utterly ridiculous. The justification was that a tribe had taken over another tribes lands. That would make them migrants, not immigrants, and it seems very disrespectful to make any other argument. That said, the book is one of the more balanced accounts I have read and I would recommend it.

[Edward Gwynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a breathtaking non-fiction in a similar vein to Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. It tackles the Anglo-White interactions with Native Americans through the 19th century. It is primarily a military book, as much of that period was focused on the to-and-fro nature of conflict between the various nations. It is also written perfectly. There is heart to it and it feels as if no stone has gone unturned in the research. The details are fascinating, heartbreaking, inspiring at times. You really feel as if you have the full picture after reading this. It doesn't quite have the grand scope of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee as it doesn't focus on the same timeline, but each chapter is marvellous. Such a brilliant read, one I will recommend to all who want to gain an understanding of the events of the 19th century American West.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Earth Is Weeping” offers an almost painfully even-handed look at the conflicts between the United States and American Indian tribes after the Civil War. Of course, given the historiography of the past fifty years, an even-handed look necessarily inverts the traditional narrative. Here, Team Indian does good and bad, and Team White does good and bad, each according to its own internal dictates of morality and external dictates of practicality and need. The Sioux are expelled from their land—which they conquered only ten years before by slaughtering the previous inhabitants with extreme brutality. The white man (and the Mexican, and the white man’s numerous Indian allies) usually breaks treaties and sometimes kills women and children. Here is no morality tale, but the old and inevitable tale of nomad vs. nomad vs. state—new, perhaps, in Sumer, but not new in 1870.

Cozzens is a well-known expert on American warfare of the Civil War period. This military history covers the period from 1866, beginning with Red Cloud’s War in Montana Territory, until 1891, the final suppression of the Sioux as an independent nation. The book is chronologically organized, and within the chronology, focuses on a variety of tribes, some better known than others because of their role in past and present popular culture, from Custer’s Last Stand to Dances With Wolves. It contains excellent maps that are a great help to the reader, both in understanding the geography of the land and the geography of Indian tribes. Cozzens’s writing is crisp, clear, and to the point, so although the book is fairly long, the reader never feels like the narrative drags—perhaps, in part, because the reader knows that around the next corner is another tragedy.

This is a history of “the Indian Wars for the American West,” so nothing is said about earlier Indian wars, either with the Spanish in the southern part of what is now the United States, or colonial conflicts with the Eastern tribes such as the Five Nations. The usual narrative of the Western Indian wars is filled with propaganda and ignorance, in earlier years driven by the call of Manifest Destiny and the myth of the savage, noble or otherwise; in later years by oppression theory and ethnic nationalist movements such as AIM. Cozzens denies all these simplistic narratives. In his Prologue he explicitly rejects Dee Brown’s famous and influential 1970 book, “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee,” which convinced a generation that the Indian wars were exemplars of good vs. evil, with the white man in the role of the Devil, bent on genocide. (Of course, it is only Western Christian societies that have ever agonized over the treatment meted out to indigenous inhabitants, from Bartolomé de las Casas onwards, so at least Brown is in good company.) Cozzens passes judgment on Brown by declaring “It is at once ironic and unique that so crucial a period of our history remains largely defined by a work that made no attempt at historical balance.” (Brown’s book thereby resembles Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” a propaganda work ideally fitted for its time, in which a core of truth was wrapped in a tissue of emotionally laden lies, thus distorting rational discourse for decades. But at least Brown’s book didn’t kill millions of people in the Third World, as Carson’s did, by demonizing safe and effective pesticides such as DDT.) Cozzens’s goal is therefore to offer a “thorough and nuanced understanding” of both the Indian and white perspective, at which he succeeds admirably.

Perhaps the most basic point Cozzens makes in opposition to the traditional narrative is that the wars between the Indians and the United States in the West were actually “a clash of emigrant peoples.” Almost all of the Western Indian tribes had only recently conquered the territories they held, and therefore their immediate concern was often preventing the attacks of local enemies—the white man seemed small in numbers and far away, until he didn’t. In this and in every other way the book rejects oversimplification and stereotypes, instead showing the rich texture of personalities created by the individuals involved, with their vices and virtues thrown into sharp relief by what was demanded of them.

Still, certain general types of relevant individuals can be discerned across time and space. On the Indian side, of those opposed to the white man (many Indian tribes simply accepted the inevitable and did not fight, or fought with the white man), there was always division between the firebrands and the accomodationists, of which the United States easily took advantage. When they fought, the Indians were “among the best soldiers man for man in the world”—but they did not fight unified, and their tactics were generally poor against regular military units (although their weapons were usually modern, and often more modern than those issued to the Army). On the side of the United States, there were some (a small but vocal minority, and over-emphasized today) who were effectively in favor of Indian extermination. The largest group, including most men in Congress and most Presidents, tended to view the Indians as children, and merely wanted the Indians out of the way, with as little ill treatment as possible—but with no actual parental feeling or actions. And there was another small group (mostly, as with abolitionists, driven by Christianity) who demanded equitable treatment for the Indians—among these were a surprising number of military officers, though they were often constrained by the chain of command to treat Indians in ways they found personally repugnant.

The inability of the Indian tribes to act together for their joint benefit, even within a single tribe, is a constant theme in this history. Most Indian societies (as with all nomads throughout history) were highly individualistic, sharply limiting the authority of chiefs, as well as the length of time they might hold authority. There was “no common identity—no sense of ‘Indianness’—and [they] were too busy fighting one another to give their undivided attention to the new threat [of the white man].” Only a few Indian leaders could persuade their own tribe to act together for long, and fewer still had any success in holding multiple tribes together, even those with common ancestry. The most famous success at an Indian confederation, not covered in this book, was Tecumseh; here, Sitting Bull is the only similarly successful leader. The Indians also had many cultural differences that exacerbated inter-tribal rivalries and hatreds. To take only a small example, though one the subject of a common stereotype, Plains Indians were big on risky displays of individual bravery, such as counting coup (even if usually counting coup with a feather or quirt was immediately followed by killing an enemy with a stone club). But the Apache were not interested in this at all, and preferred to kill by stealth.

Cozzens begins his narrative with a poignant story of the Southern Cheyenne chief Long Bear, invited to Washington to meet with Abraham Lincoln, who treated him politely, if condescendingly, and gave him bronze peace medals and papers attesting to friendship. Long Bear toured New York City and met various influential men; he was treated with respect, as he expected to be, since he was a chief just as Lincoln was. He returned to Colorado, and when soldiers approached his village, rode out to meet them, medals gleaming to show his friendship. They shot him. As General George Crook, who fought for the Army throughout this period, said, “[The Indians] are surrounded on all sides, the game is destroyed or driven away, they are left to starve, and there remains but one thing for them to do—fight while they can. Our treatment of the Indian is an outrage.” No doubt it was—but, perhaps, in an expansionist society confident of its destiny, it was also inevitable. Cozzens never says this, but he does frame the conflict thus: “[T]he federal government never contemplated genocide. That the Indian way of life must be eradicated if the Indian were to survive, however, was taken for granted.”

The book turns first to Red Cloud’s War, one of the very few Indian successes, not coincidentally taking place in 1866, when the United States was still distracted by the aftermath of the Civil War, and white settlement of the Great Plains was just beginning. Red Cloud was an Oglala Sioux, with ties to the Brulé, each being one of the seven sub-tribes of the Sioux (the Lakota being the most famous today). (One thing that comes through very clearly is the tiny numbers of Western Indians—the Sioux, for example, never had more than five thousand warriors, even when all seven sub-tribes combined, which was rare in the extreme.) Red Cloud defeated the Crow, taking from them land guaranteed by a treaty earlier brokered by the United States. Then, together with elements of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, traditional Sioux allies, he defeated small elements of the US Army, including killing an entire detachment of eighty men, and cut off settler access to the Bozeman Trail in Wyoming, which the Army was trying to keep open. The United States then made peace on terms that seemed favorable to Red Cloud—using a vague and hard-to-understand treaty which, as so often, was not understood in the same way by both sides, but which kept the peace for a time (and permanently cut off the Crow from their best hunting grounds).

Following chapters focus on the wars with the Cheyenne. Custer began his Indian-fighting career here, and this set of skirmishes and small battles ended badly for the Cheyenne. This included the 1868 Battle of Washita, where various outrages were committed by the Army and their Osage allies, resulting in heavy criticism back East. Criticism was exacerbated by Custer abandoning a group of troopers who had, unknown to Custer, already been killed to the last man, which lowered Custer’s already low reputation among much of the Army. Next come the wars of the Comanche and Kiowa, inhabitants of the Southern Plains, involving the famous half-white Comanche war chief Quanah Parker (himself the subject of a recent biography).

These wars were conducted under the “Peace Policy” of President Grant, which basically consisted of being reasonably nice to the Indians, offering them “annuities” (money) and rations to substitute for the disappearing buffalo, as long as they showed movement toward adopting the settled ways of the white man, and of being nasty to them if they failed to do so. As with so much of Grant’s administration, this policy was adversely affected by corruption, particularly in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA proved usually unable to perform its functions, largely because everyone had his hand in the till. And it vied with the Army for primacy in administering relations with the Indians (who usually preferred the Army to administer relations in peacetime), a split of authority that frequently harmed the Indians. Moreover, members of the BIA were not above spreading lies about Indian violence where none existed in order to drum up Congressional appropriations, which could then be redirected into the pockets of Indian agents. At best, United States administration of peaceful Indian relations seems to have been mediocre, and often, it was awful, contributing to unrest among Indians otherwise peaceful, and strengthening the hand of the “war party” that was a major grouping among many Indian tribes.

Cozzens then switches to the Pacific Northwest, where the small Modoc tribe in Oregon fought rather than be forced onto reservations, using the rough volcanic terrain and their superior fighting skills to hold off the Army and kill quite a few soldiers before they were defeated. The Modoc War, which featured lowlights such as a Modoc chief shooting an American general in the face during a negotiation, for which he was hanged, whipped up anti-Indian sentiment and increased pressure on Grant to take a more aggressive stance toward the Indians in general. The Cheyenne wars continued, and violence flared up in Apache country, in Arizona and New Mexico. The latter also involved the Mexicans, because the Apache often raided across the border, or fled from one country to the other to escape the local army—and the Mexicans were even less accommodating of the Indians than the United States.

Much of the book is taken up with discussion of the Northern Plains, primarily the Sioux, with, naturally, quite a bit about Custer’s destruction at Little Bighorn. As with so many Indian victories, however, the Indians were unable to follow up on the success, both because of disunity and because they conceptually did not view “victory” in the same way as the white man. And also as with any other Indian victory, the effect was to cause the United States to throw huge additional resources at defeating the Indians, and to undermine any nascent movements toward peaceable coexistence. Of course, incidents such as the Army destroying a group of Cheyenne warriors and recovering “a bag containing the severed right hands of twelve Shoshone babies” accelerated the feeling in the East that the free, or “non-treaty” (i.e., non-reservation) Indian could never co-exist with the United States. These Northern Plains battles, primarily against the Sioux, in the late 1870s, also featured the famous Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, as well as a cast of less famous characters.

Cozzens then switches gears, to the Nez Perce War in what is now Idaho and Montana. Like the Modoc, the Nez Perce were small in number, but made up for that in fighting competency. But the end was the same—most of the warriors dying, a few escaping to Canada, and the rest of the tribe becoming “treaty Indians.” Their leader, Chief Joseph, fought in part to control the land where his people were buried, declaring “A man who would not love his father’s grave is worse than a wild animal.” The story of the Utes, inhabitants of fastnesses in the Rocky Mountains, was much the same. I don’t mean to make these stories sound boring—they are not. They are tragic, but each story has a range of well-drawn personalities, each with his own motivations, foibles and virtues, and in their interaction the reader finds both interest and a repetition of timeless lessons about human nature.

Cozzens then returns to the Apaches and the Sioux. He covers Geronimo, who was widely regarded as courageous, but a nasty and untrustworthy drunk, by both Indians and whites, given even more than most Apaches to torture of children and similar activities marking him out as wholly uncivilized. And, finally, Cozzens covers the ultimate decline of the non-treaty Sioux, with the spread of the Ghost Dance, how it unsettled the whites, and how a combination of last ditch Indian efforts to retain their freedom and white desire to permanently end the Indian “menace” resulted in 1890 in the murder of Sitting Bull and the massacre of the remaining, decrepit non-treaty Sioux at Wounded Knee, regarded as the end of the Indian Wars.

Throughout this time, of course, white settlement had been rapidly expanding. This is the backdrop to all the details of fighting—inexorably, in the background, massive settlement had been underway. Even when they did not directly intrude on Indian territory, their presence effectively hemmed in the Indians and made clear to many of them the inevitable dark future that faced them. And within a few years, free Indians were merely a memory, difficult to comprehend in a landscape of ranches and farms.

Cozzens covers a variety of controversial topics; he makes no effort to be politically correct. (He does not even discuss using the term dubious and inaccurate “Native American,” which appears nowhere in this book.) He discusses scalping to obtain trophies, noting that to the Indians, Indian scalps were more prestigious than white scalps. Mutilation of the dead was near universal among the Plains Indians, not so much (as their opponents saw it) as a demonstration of rage or savagery, but because of the belief it would cripple the dead in the afterlife and thus prevent them from taking revenge on their killers there. Rape, including gang rape, of captured women, white or Indian, by Indians was universal (and conversely, nearly unheard of among the Army). This contradicts Holger Hoock’s claim in “Scars of Independence” that rape of enemy women was rare by Indians, although his claim relates to earlier wars involving the woodland Indians of the East, so this may simply be a cultural difference among tribes. Other interesting, though not controversial, facts also crop up. For example, many Indians took great risks, and hampered their fighting, in order to protect the tribe's sacred religious objects, and the elaborate dress in which many Plains Indians wore in battle (but by no means all—Crazy Horse, for example, was noted for the simplicity of his dress in battle) was not a method of preening, but so they would look their best when going to meet the Great Spirit. All these facts make the presentation of what is essentially a military history considerably more interesting that it would otherwise be.

It is impossible for us, at this remove, to not admire the Indians who fought in the West, doomed avatars of a doomed way of life. Like Roland, the story of the underdog who goes out in a blaze of glory attracts us. And while the reality is, as always, messier (Roland fought the Basques, not the Muslims, and Geronimo ended up signing autographs on a reservation), there are still salutary lessons, for us and for our children, in the stand taken by the American Indians profiled here--a small group of men who refused to bend the knee, and fought, and died, for the way they and their fathers had lived. As an Englishman of a more confident age said, of another warrior people, “And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?”

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colonel John Gibbon, a significant participant in the wars that the United States waged against its native inhabitants, wrote about them in 1875:

Put yourself in his place and let the white man ask himself the question, What would I do if treated as the Indian has been and is? Suppose a race superior to mine were to land upon the shores of this great continent, trade or cheat us out of our land foot by foot, gradually encroach upon our domain until we were finally driven, a degraded demoralized band, into a small corner of the continent, where to live at all it was necessary to steal, perhaps to do worse? Suppose that in a spirit of justice, this superior race should recognize the fact that it was in duty bound to place food in our mouths and blankets on our backs, what would we do in the premises? I have seen one who hates an Indian as he does a snake, and thinks there is no good Indian but a dead one, on having the proposition put to him in this way, grind his teeth in rage and exclaim,” I would cut the heart out of every one I could lay my hands on,” and so he would; and so we all would.

The same sentiment has been expressed by other military officers of note who, like Gibbon, mercilessly pursued, hounded, persecuted, and indiscriminately killed men, women, and children — people who, in most cases, were merely attempting to live the way of life their centuries-old customs and culture dictated, while resisting the forces that were coercing them to abandon all of it. Being military men, of course, they were trained to unquestionably obey orders. They were also men of extreme ambition, who knew that successful military campaigns inevitably led to military, social, and (often) political advancement.

The question I keep asking myself, over and over again, every time I read another book on Native American history (66 books now, counting this one) is: How could these men live with themselves? Were they lacking a conscience?

It seems that with every book I read on this subject the more cynical I become and the more hopeless I feel about humanity today as I realize that we are no different than the people of former times. Also as I read these books I find myself hoping that, maybe, by some miracle, upon this reading of these struggles, the outcomes just might turn out a little bit better. Of course, they never do. Maybe it is time for me to take up a different subject to study.

This book was very good at describing most of the significant Indian conflicts in the years that followed the American Civil War. It contains more detail than most other similar comprehensive books, but (obviously) less detail than books written about specific conflicts. It must have been difficult for the author to decide upon the right balance. At some points I felt too much was omitted, at other times I felt that too much was included. Overall, it is a commendable work which I would recommend to anyone with an interest in the subject. For those who are completely new to the subject, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee might be a better choice.

[Sean Chick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The current narrative of the Indian Wars is one where evil whites come and take the land from helpless Indians. Cozzens disagrees with the overall structure of this interpretation, while never doubting that America was certainly in the wrong. These were mostly wars of conquest. His goal here is give us the complications in that narrative that ultimately make it a story with much more pathos and tragedy, a welcome thing in our Manichean age. Considering what I have seen in Cozzens' other books, this was to be expected.

The book is one of divisions. America is divided between eastern humanitarians who wanted the Indians on reservations with farms, and settlers who advocated extermination, with Colorado coming close to legalizing outright genocide. The army is divided between hardliners and accommodationists, although no one in the army wanted genocide. The hardline policy prevailed since most of the wars were overseen by Sherman and Sheridan, but accommodationists like Crook, Howard, and Miles oversaw the fighting, which meant the wars were less brutal than they could have been, much to the chagrin of the settlers. Grant is divided, pursing a peace policy only to end his presidency condoning naked aggression with the Great Sioux War.

Finally, there are the Indians, who are separate tribes. Those tribes have great rivalries, fanned by generations of bitter warfare. Right before Little Big Horn the Sioux had beaten the Crow. Is it any wonder the Crow provided scouts and warriors to fight the Sioux? Or that they murdered Sioux captives? The tribes themselves were divided between peace and war factions, between conservatives and progressives (for lack of a better term). The only time a great Indian alliance was forged, they won a great victory at Little Big Horn. Yet, months later some of the Indians who beat Custer were in the US army hunting down their old allies. The irony is tragic and pervasive. Sitting Bull was killed by his fellow Sioux. Crazy Horse in his dying words blamed his fellow Sioux. The Apache who helped hunt Geronimo wanted to kill him. Geronimo for his part became a farmer and Christian and admired western civilization. He reserved his burning hatred for the Mexicans he killed throughout his career.

Cozzens is most depressing though in his tone. Here, war and conquest are inevitable, brought in part by different civilizations. Many Indians who led war parties were goaded into it by tribal rivals. No Indian thought they could defeat the Americans. They fought to get better terms or out of pure desperation. Sometimes they fought to defend their culture; in the case of the Apache that meant the right to beat your wife. When they encountered a white man they could trust, such as Crook, they were willing to deal. Trouble is for every good white man there were those who exploited them or were incompetent. The wars depicted here are, with few exceptions, unwanted by both parties and started by error and arrogance, of which men on both sides indulged.

Cozzens has created a readable, fair, and moving account of what is arguably the most controversial series of wars fought by America. It should be required reading if one wants to understand American history.

[XXX · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing way to end the year. The book markets itself (in the preface) as a correction to "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," saying it will tell the story of the "Indian Wars" out West from a balanced "both sides" perspective. Unfortunately, it ends up doing nothing of the sort.

First, the good: from a military history perspective, this book has done a good job summarizing the various movements of forces and battles that led to Native Americans being entirely dispossessed of their land and forced onto reservations. Cozzens also appropriately condemns American perfidy and brutality in all the many places it crops up without idealizing every action of the Native Americans (though appropriately noting that they were far more sinned against than sinning).

Still, this is where the good parts end. It's not really much of a history or story as much as a military summary. The detailed parts of the book are pretty telling. We hear best guesses for a lot of the action in some of the battles ("X fired his gun taking down two others before being wounded in the...") and sometimes even US (white) military generals opining on various topics. Native American voices are present in summarizing the battles or lamenting their position, but they still end up being largely one-dimensional. For example, the Kiowa chief Kicking Bird comes up at a number of points throughout the story and it's mentioned he is pro-peace. But... why? What of the many good reasons to pursue peace did Kicking Bird have? What was he like as a person?

The book similarly lacks a broad perspective on all cultures, especially Native American ones. The Comanche are simply "a cruel people" (broad brush much?). Also annoying, Cozzens, for reasons that I don't understand, prefers to use the term "Indians" not "Native Americans" without seeming to spend much thought on it. Also the stupid audiobook reader kept mispronouncing names like saying "Shoshones" as "Show-SHOWNS." There's little reflection on how the momentous events depicted shaped Native American or US American cultures, other than the most obvious notes that Native Americans were forced onto reservations and adopted agriculture (or tried). These comically broad-brush statements reveal little except to contrast with the exceptional detail and exhilaration devoted to the battles.

Come to think of it, even this is exaggerated. At least in (e.g.) the US civil war the fights are appropriately epic. Here, it is more often than not a story of the US cavalry chasing down a few hundred starving people (including civilians/women/children) across the plains. Big whoop.

The book set a laudable and necessary goal but seems to have been sidetracked by the author's delight for "cowboys vs Indians"-type storytelling.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a meticulously researched and detailed accounting of the Indian Wars for the American West, from 1862 to 1891. These various bloody wars spanned a mere 30 years in length…..crazy to think an entire way of life and culture for so many indigenous people could be dismantled in just 30 years. And only 150 years ago!

Cozzens’ purpose here is to provide a “thorough and nuanced understanding of the white perspectives as well as that of the Indians”…..bringing “historical balance to the story of the Indian wars.” I haven’t yet read Dee Brown’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” but Cozzens opines that that standard popular classic on this era is one-sided and simplistic.

It took me nine days to get through this book. There is an incredible amount of detail here (127 pages of notes, bibliography and indices alone) and SO. MANY. PLAYERS. Dense. Very violent, but guess what? That all happened so it’s in the book. Yes, very graphic.

I learned so much. Basic take-away here…..white colonizers and politicians suck. So much lying, profiteering and blatant betrayal. But we all know that, right? This is a terrible story, but I’m glad to have read it. I recommend the book, but do plan to spend some time settling in with it. It can feel laborious.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Cozzens, a veteran Civil War historian, turns his attention to America's bloody twilight wars against Native Americans between 1865 and 1890 with The Earth is Weeping. It's the tragic stuff of legends, movies and a million history works, yet Cozzens manages to make the familiar topic fresh and invigorating again. He crisply recounts battles and personalities both familiar (Custer's Last Stand, Geronimo's Apache terror campaign, Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce) and obscure (California's Modoc War, the extirpation of the Utes) while offering often-penetrating insight into the wars' causes and execution. To the extent there's a central thesis, Cozzens argues that military leaders actually opposing Indians were, for the most part, sympathetic to their cause, pragmatic in their dealings and often shamed and insulted by the policies they were forced to carry out. Hence much-maligned figures like George Crook, Nelson Miles and even George Custer receive relatively sympathetic treatment (not so much Sheridan and Sherman, who are viewed as ruthless genocidaires). He also presents the Native peoples of the West as hopelessly divided in their response to the whites, some fighting back, others urging assimilation, still more siding with the whites against holdouts - making their defeat even easier. The real villains are Washington politicians (Ulysses Grant, often lauded his supposedly pro-Indian views, comes in for particular drubbing) more concerned about executing policy than realities on the ground, greedy territorial governors, Indian agents and lawmen who openly abuse and betray their charges. While much of the book is persuasive, Cozzens also presents some disputable claims: he balks at using the term "genocide" on the grounds that the United States government didn't seek to exterminate the Natives, which strikes this reviewer as a dubious semantic argument belied by the author's own work. His judgments of some events and characters, from downplaying Custer's incompetence (he blames Little Big Horn on his superior Alfred Terry) to framing Geronimo as a near-psychotic bandit, will certainly rankle some readers. While not the definitive work on the subject, and certainly flawed, it's also a useful overview of this much-mythologized period.

[Mike Lynch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a massive accomplishment. Cozzens has read and assimilated an unbelievable amount of data, and his writing is clear. He is a very good story-teller and keeps you interested throughout the more than 450 pages of text and over 30 pages of notes. I definitely learned a lot and even un-learned a few things I had previously believed. While it may seem bizarre to note omissions in a 450 page book, I did notice that the Navajo and Pueblo tribes received little or no mention, although it's entirely possible that their 'wars' with the U.S. Army were not major events in the grand scheme.

Still, I couldn't escape feeling uncomfortable as I made my way through this book. Was it my imagination, or were the atrocities perpetrated *by* Indians described a bit more graphically than those perpetrated against them? For example, Cozzens argues that Custer's attack at the Washita should not be described as a massacre because soldiers were not "encouraged to kill women and children." Perhaps that's true, but Cozzens has hardly any comment at all to make on the fact that some ninety of the women who were 'spared' were then made available to officers of the Seventh Cavalry as bedmates. (Indeed, Cozzens seems reluctant to say much of anything negative about Custer.) Later, Cozzens has no comment on the fact that another Army general who, having offered a reward for the head of a 'renegade,' receives two, and, "Being satisfied [...] paid both parties."

A handful of Army officers and government agents certainly understood the injustices they committed on behalf of their government and tried to be fair to and protective of the Indians. Cozzens describes these 'good' whites well. But it seemed that the many other 'bad' whites who seriously mistreated Indians are described as mentally unbalanced, or drunk, or influenced by eastern elites, or simply out of touch. I understand that there was no grand conspiracy of white government officials, businessmen and Army officers designed to destroy the Indians and their way of life. But Cozzens almost seems to go to the opposite extreme and ignore even the congruence of interests which must have caused many whites to act in cooperation, if not collusion.

It's also certainly understandable that there are many more written records of the experiences of soldiers extant than there are of the experiences of warriors, and it should be noted, their families. Still, Cozzens seems content to describe the hardships faced by the Army as they pursued various bands in harsh weather and over unforgiving landscapes while largely ignoring what the Indians must have endured.

Where Cozzens excels is in bringing to vivid life the numerous battles and campaigns of the Indian Wars. He also clearly details the disagreements between and within the various tribes about how to deal with the encroachment of the white man, specifically describing those tribes and factions that joined with the Army as scouts and fighters. This is an important and valuable book. I just wish there had been a little more empathy with the plight of Native Americans and a little more criticism of the actions of the government and the settlers. Of course, Cozzens may well argue that such is not the job of a historian, nor the purpose of his book!

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Cozzens aims his formidable historical and narrative powers at the wars between the American Indians and the US government after the Civil War until their winding down, culminating with the Wounded Knee massacre (it's stretching things to call it a battle) in 1891. In spite of the eventual (and probably inevitable) outcome of these wars, let no one imagine that the US Army had an easy time of it; the native tribes had serious fighting skills, honed by many years of fighting with each other, and then strengthened by the technologies the whites themselves introduced, namely the rifle, metal weapons and the horse. It ought to be pointed out that every successful campaign the army fought against the Indians had large numbers of other Indians, even from the same tribes, fighting alongside them. "You need Apaches to track Apaches," said one officer. Be that as it may, the whole dreary tale of conquest, betrayal, forced expulsions and cultural suppression of the indigenous inhabitants of the United States is a black chapter in the history of the great democracy, but one that should be understood in all of its various aspects, including those of Indian brutality and aggression towards white settlers, and how the people who were the most sympathetic towards the Indians' plight were often the very army officers whose duty it was to defeat and control them. Mr. Cozzens has done us all a great service by moving the narrative beyond that of "victim studies" - such as Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - to a more nuanced and balanced view of this struggle for the fate of a continent. First-rate history.

[Jeff Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Late in Peter Cozzens’s “The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West,” a passage describes how Sitting Bull—after having traveled the country with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show in 1885—sought to debunk the notion that all white men universally worshiped the Great Father (the Indian name for whoever was the U.S. President):

First, Sitting Bull set his people straight on the Great Father. The agents had lied: white men did not hold the Great Father sacred. On the contrary, Sitting Bull told them, “half the people in the hotels were always making fun of him and trying to get him out of his place and some other man into his place.” As for members of Congress, “they loved their whores more than their wives.” And like most white men, they drank too much. (p. 436)

“The Earth is Weeping” seeks to be the new definitive history of what is considered one of America’s major conflicts. Cozzen states in the introduction that he wants to bring a needed balance to the Indian Wars narrative. Because of the seminal “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” (1970), Cozzen writes, the pendulum of American perception has swung toward thinking that the white man was uniformly evil toward the Indians, or that there was a unified Indian opposition to the white man. As is often the case with history, it’s more complicated than that.

As a reading experience, “The Earth Is Weeping" is satisfying. Intensely researched and generously written, the narrative can be repetitive, but necessarily so (there are so many tribes and battles described that it’s hard to keep them straight, much less the complex and often shifting alliances). Cozzens highlights dozens of characters from both sides, but reserves special attention for A-listers such as Custer, Geronimo, Crazy Horse and the aforementioned Sitting Bull.

Anyone unfamiliar with the Indian Wars will also be struck by the atrocity of the conflicts. The wars were essentially a series of reprisals for increasingly violent acts. Indians are slaughtered inhumanely at places such as Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, while other Indians torture white travelers and U.S. soldiers, even violating the taboo of corpse defilement (e.g., some Indian women would cut the penises off fallen soldiers and stuff them into the soldiers’ mouths). Indeed, before going into battle against the Indians, U.S. soldiers were told, ‘Save the last bullet for yourself,’ and it was meant literally.

So if you’re at all interested in this period of American history, it’s hard to see how you would be disappointed by “The Earth is Weeping.” Apart from its many other achievements, in the end TEIW reinforces the truism that we shouldn’t reduce the past to black-and-white moral judgments.

[Dirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars means "I really liked it," which is hard to reconcile with a narrative that reads like an opening of many raw, festering wounds. The eye and the mind strain to examine too directly and too long this repetitive chronicle of avarice and deception, bloodshed and misery. While the events of the various conflicts and lives of the relevant participants are thoroughly and astutely detailed, the author does not expressly identify the central disturbing irony of so-titled Indian Wars, which is that those wars occurred immediately following a conflict intended to re-unify a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" and resulted in depriving the original Americans of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as they knew it, as well as denying them the freedoms of speech in their native tongues and practicing their respective religions. The aggressors did not see the Indians as equals, nor, by labeling them as savages, were they considered men. The books ends with the events of the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, but the story continues even now, with the protests in North Dakota.

[Luke Gardiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book! This book was a page turner from beginning to end, and was an easy read for somebody not very well versed in the history that it discusses. Cozzens has the gift of being able to beautiful illustrate the history he describes, whether that be terse negotiations or all out battles, and it makes the book a compelling one. It depicts the Indian Wars in intimate detail and seems to miss out very little. The book is also very fact driven but also tells an evenhanded story, both depicting Native Americans and US Army members in good and bad lights. I heartily recommend this book, but be aware that the story it tells is a sad one!

[George Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read about a tragic time in American history.

[Jon Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author said that he tried to re-examine the white and Indian relationships, and not to vilify either side, as has been done in the past, but to see both sides for what they were. It seems to me that he did a good job of it. Lots of detailed descriptions of battles and skirmishes, which grew boring for me, and I sometimes felt like I was missing the forest for the trees with this book. But I learned a lot.

Some major takeaways for me:

- Many of the Indian tribes were peaceful, but many fostered a war-oriented culture. The more violent tribes did some extremely gruesome stuff to the bodies of the people they fought and killed. Even the women were full participants in the violent culture. Some Indian tribes fought whites to protect their families and way of life. Other Indian tribes fought because that's the only way to become respected in their tribe. Cozzens didn't give me a good feel for which was more common.

- Much of the time, when whites kicked Indians off of some spot of land, those Indians had relatively recently done the same thing to another group of Indians. Everybody wanted the best land.

- The best-intentioned whites wanted to civilize and Christianize the Indians, for the Indians' own survival. No one seemed to think that just letting them be was a great option. It seems to me that Indians were, at best, seen as children who needed to grow up.

- US military/government action included a lot of lying to the Indians, making deals that they didn't keep, or continually not keeping their end of the bargain as they tried to drive Indians onto reservations.

- President Ulysses Grant provoked a peaceful Indian tribe to war, so that the US government could feel justified in driving them off some spot of land that had gold or something or other. This is a more extreme example of the sort of thing that the US government did often.

This book has left me wondering what would have been best for the whites to do? Many of the actions of the whites were despicable. If I were in charge of the big picture with the Indians, what would I have done? This is quite the case study in cultures colliding - even notions of owning/occupying land were extremely different between the two groups. I think all I can really say is that we did a horrible job managing it, but I have no idea what would have been the best alternative.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well written. But despite a wealth of knowledge (I knew very little about how the U.S. gained possession of Native American territories, now I do know something about it) this is a bad take on the subject. I didnt like the way the author sympathises with the army, for example describing certain Indigenous people guzzling whiskey, while certain officers in the US Army were "hard drinking." It's only one example of a theme that is sometimes more, and sometimes less overt. Disturbing too because the author, a former US foreign service member who worked in Latin America in the 1980's (!!!), writes in a generally sympathetic tone.

All in all I'd shy away from recommending this book. I don't like the way that the author seems to support the idea that reformers, crooked Indian agents, hateful white settlers and duplicitous politicians are to blame for the genocidal wars the US waged in order to appropriate Native land. Certainly that's part of the story, but I don't believe it would have worked out better for Native Americans if other, nicer people had come to take their land. No, there is a systemic question here that the author (perhaps purposefully?) never tries to answer, instead pinning the blame on individuals.

Nor do I like the support, dressed in criticism, the author gives the US Army. Like perhaps the nicer, kinder, people to administer a troubled society is the military. He never says as much, but it is one of the impressions of his world view that I get from the book.

[JMarryott23 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the high Goodreads score and the fact that the subject interested me, I just found myself bored to tears with this book. The scope of the story is massive, covering the entirety of the Native American vs America battle, but it felt way too long. Seemingly small anecdotal facts are drawn out constantly and the battles are both few and brief when they do appear. And with all of the glowing praise, along with a potential film adaption that I bet will be good, I’m not sure there is any one reason why this didn’t work for me. I just kept waiting for my interest to pick up. By the midway point I started to lose hope that it would build interest, and it just never did. All of which is very disappointing - I really wanted to like this one but just could not get into it. I certainly learned a lot, including all the lies that came from the government (either on purpose or on accident) and the fact that Indians were slowly forced to lose land over a long period of war, negotiation, and legislation. Based on everyone else’s opinion of the book, maybe it was just my headspace.

[Harmke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heel gedetailleerd boek over de Indianenoorlogen in Amerika. Gelukkig lees je wel makkelijk over alle militair-strategische feitjes heen. De schrijver laat goed zien dat de oorlogen een cocktail waren van van alles en nog wat. Indianenstammen vochten tegen andere indianenstammen, legerofficieren hadden vaak respect en mededogen met de indianen, kolonisten haatten de indianen, indianen wilden vooral respect en hun leefwijze behouden en als uiterste middel gebruikten ze geweld, Amerikanen aan de oostkust vonden het leger en de politiek per definitie te wreed, het ministerie voor Indianenzaken was behoorlijk racistisch en bevoogdend en natuurlijk waren er ook verdwaalde idealisten. Kortom: het beeld van het leger als 'bad guy' is een stuk genuanceerder. Veel geleerd!