08.12.16 - redefining focus

08.12.16

Focusing on the restriction of Native American history, my extension major will be focusing on the impact of ‘Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee’ by Dee Brown.

In researching I also found reference to ‘The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West’ by Peter Cozzens. This account, published 46 years later aims to balance out the one sided perspective of browns account, he states “that so crucial a period of our history remains largely defined by a work that made no attempt at historical balance” 1. - Cozzens.

Collectively, using both accounts, I will be researching the alternative viewpoints of sitting rock and the impacts of ‘bury my heart.’

- Background information about the time of publication for BMHWK. Just months before its publication a group of Native American activists calling themselves Indians of All Tribes demanded that the former prison outpost be deeded back to them by the United States government. When Brown published his searing account of west expansion, accusing the Army of annihilating Indians between 1860 and 1890, his timing was explosive. 

“While Brown’s book contained factual errors, it dramatically succeeded in changing the attitudes of the generation of the 1970s about how the West was really won.”2.

Significance of TEIW is that while Dee Brown’s book greatly informed our modern view of the conflict between Native Americans and the United States government, didn’t hold great historical accuracy. “Very simply, the Indians weren’t all good and the white people weren’t all bad”3. - Chris Schluep

1. P. Cozzens, The Earth is Weeping, Atlantic Books, 25 Oct. 2016, pp. 7, Available from: Google books ( accessed 9th December 2016 

2.  D. Brinkley, Unbury My Heart at Wounded Knee: A New Look at the Indian Wars, (web blog),  November 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/books/review/earth-is-weeping-peter-cozzens.html?_r=0  (accessed 8^th December 2016)

3.   C. Schluep, The Amazon Book Review, (website),  http://www.petercozzens.net/the_earth_is_weeping__the_epic_story_of_the_indian_wars_for_the_american_west__129693.htm (accessed 8th December 2016)