The Long Death

Every once in a while, I like to write about books I have read, today is one of those days.

The book today is the most difficult book I’ve ever attempted to read.  It also falls into the category of a book I purchased.  Several years ago, I made the difficult decision to stop purchasing books.  I had too many…. they cost too much for reading one time and then leaving on a shelf for years.  So currently I typically get my books from the library.  But this book caught my eye in a little unique store outside of Cincinnati.  The store carries only Native Indian items:  jewelry, ceremonial items, clothing, books, you name it, anything American Indian. 

The title of the book is The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indians.  And with that title, I’m sure you can understand why it was difficult to read.  I purchased the book about 2 years ago, started to read it and quickly set it aside, it was breaking my heart. 

Yes, of course, I should have anticipated the difficulty of the topic, but, Mr. Ralph K. Andrist, the author, is an excellent writer, obviously an excellent researcher and had the ability to share a compelling story that I had not learned in 9^th grade history class. 

I began again in April this year, and while it took me a while, until August, I finally got through it.  I cried a couple of times as I read.  It has come to mind several times since I got through the final pages, even a question on Jeopardy caused me to wonder at the authors of Jeopardy questions.

Let me share the first paragraph of the book….

            “The last gunfire on the Great Plains between Indians and soldiers of the United States was exchanged on a bitterly cold day in 1890, the next to last day of the year.  On that day, on Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, a forlorn and hungry band of Sioux, including women and children, was goaded and frightened into making a gesture of resistance to Army authority.  When it was over, the Indian wars of the plains were ended, and with them the long struggle of all American Indians, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to preserve some portion of their ancestral lands and tribal ways.”

Mr. Andrist had a unique perspective in that he tells the story of the American Indians facing eastward, toward the invading Europeans, rather than westward, a perspective that comes closer to the Indian viewpoint.  And he sees what happened as the holocaust that it was.

This particular story starts at the end of “The Trail of Tears” when the Indians that were moved westward, arrive, unwelcomed by their counterparts who had lived in the region for generations, and contains broken promise, after broken promise, after broken promise, by the Indian Agents, the US Army hierarchy, all the way up to the president of the United States.  There were a few good guys: a few good Indian Agents, a few good Army commanders, but they were the very rare exception.  The general rule was “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

The Trail of Tears went from 1831-1850.  In 1877, as that year ended, “in all the Great Plains, from Canada south, there was no longer a free tribe or a ‘wild’ Indian.  It had not taken long, in 1840 the boundary of the permanent Indian Country had been completed and the Great Plains were to belong forever to the Indians.  A mere 37 years later every solemn promise had been broken and no bit of ground large enough to be buried in remained to any Indian that could not – and probably would – be arbitrarily taken from him without warning."

The book is a narrative of all the wars that took place, of Native Americans defending their homes, their families.  From the European perspective, yes they were savage, cruel, cunning, but the thought that came to my mind was, what would I be if someone was trying to take my home from me in those days?