Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Traditional texts glory in our nation's western expansion, the great conquest of the virgin frontier. But how did the original Americans - the Dakota, Nez Perce, Ute, Ponca, Cheyenne, Navaho, Apache, and others - feel about the coming of the white man, the expropriation of their land, the destruction of their way of life? What really happened to Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Cochise, Red Cloud, Little Wolf, and Sitting Bull as their people were killed or driven into reservations during decades of broken promises, oppression, and war?" "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a meticulously documented account of the systematic plunder of the American Indians during the second half of the nineteenth century, battle by battle, massacre by massacre, broken treaty by broken treaty. Here - reconstructed in vivid and heartbreaking detail - is their side of the story. We can see their faces and hear their voices as they tried desperately to live in peace and harmony with the white man." "With forty-nine photographs of the great chiefs, their wives and warriors; with the words of the Indians themselves, culled from testimonies and transcripts and previously unpublished writings; with a straight-forward, eloquent, and epic style, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee presents a unique and disturbing history of the American West."--Jacket.