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Dee Brown spent the early part of his life in the lumber camps and oil fields of the American South West. He worked as a printer, journalist and a librarian, and has published numerous books, mostly non-fiction, dealing with the history of the American West. The tragedy of the American Indians haunted him from boyhood, when he first became aware of their fate, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was a product of many years research in an attempt to set the record straight. Dee Brown died in 2002, aged 94.
A well-intentioned, weepy account of frontier wars against the American Indian. The scope of the book is more restricted than the subtitle suggests, dealing almost exclusively with the Fate of the Cheyenne and the Sioux between 1860 and 1890. Though amply researched, the narrative is excessively anecdotal and apart from the eloquent testimonials of the Indians themselves concerning their progressive disillusionment with the good faith of American treaty-makers, there is almost no sense of historical development. Every Indian warrior from Black Kettle to Sitting Bull is portrayed as a noble and pathetic soul while the American generals are simply butchers and sadists. Though Miss Brown perceives some differences between the appeasers and the radicals, her treatment of Indian nationalism lacks sophistication - thus for example, the glaring contrasts between Black Kettle, the white man's friend, and the militant Dog Soldiers who broke away from his authority, are neither stressed nor interpreted. Similarly, the crucial role of the half-breed as emissary between two civilizations is not sufficiently explored either in psychological or political terms. Between massacres, Miss Brown provides the background to such immortal American aphorisms as Custer's the only good Indian is a dead Indian. A good book to read before taking off to see Soldier Blue. (Kirkus Reviews)
