Jake’s Reviews > Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West > Status Update

Once again, US gov forced Kiowa and Comanche tribes off their lands in the plains and wanted them on reservations. They resisted, and the US hunted them down. They could surrender and starve on the reservation, or fight for freedom. The US settlers intentionally killed buffalo to starve the tribes and force them onto the reservation. In <10 years, the leaders of both tribes were dead and so were millions of buffalo

When the Gold Rush started, the Modocs were living in Northern California. US invaded their land. Whites killed Modocs because Modocs had killed some cattle. Modocs retaliated and killed white settlers. Captain Jack wanted peace, but US refused to let them stay in their land. Modocs resisted strongly and didn’t surrender. Jack was forced by his men to kill Canby, but his men backstabbed him and had him killed.

A continuing theme of this book is “move or else.” Apaches had lived in the southwest for a long time and endured the harsh treatment from the Spanish & Americans. When they refused to move, US military accused them of violence and retaliated, causing hundreds of innocent people to die. US refused to believe that Indians could posses the same freedoms as a white man.

Donehogawa was an Iroquois man who became the first Indian commissioner of Indian Affairs in DC. He helped negotiate between the US and Cheyennes about where their reservation land could be. Without him, war was inevitable in the Plains. Red Cloud had been lied to when he signed the original treaty, but Donehogawa helped renegotiate it, allowing Cheyenne’s to remain on their hunting land, but not for long.

Red Cloud’s war started because the US built a road and forts throughout the Powder River territory. This was Cheyenne & Sioux land & the white settlers were scaring off and killing wild game. Red Cloud and other’s resisted, not negotiating any treaty until the US left the area. They ultimately won and signed a treaty where the US would abandon this territory. However, the treaty would be violated in the future.