Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee Analysis

Brown mainly relies on historical research while writing the manuscript for “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee”. He studied personal descriptions, historical documents, and town council records to create a historically accurate account on how Americans conquered the West. While writing this book, Brown mainly writes about the events of the “Indian Wars”, which occurred during 1860’s through the 1890’s.

From its birth, America was a place of inequality and privilege. Since Columbus 's arrival and up until present day, Native American tribes have been victim of white men 's persecution and tyranny. This was first expressed in the 1800’s, when Native Americans were driven off their land and forced to embark on the Trail of Tears, and again during the Western American- Indian War where white Americans massacred millions of Native Americans in hatred. Today, much of the Indian Territory that was once a refuge for Native Americans has since been taken over by white men, and the major tribes that once called these reservations home are all but gone. These events show the discrimination and oppression the Native Americans faced. They were, and continue to be, pushed onto reservations,

The book Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee was written by Dee Brown. Dee Brown wrote a handful of books and the central theme around those books were tales of Native Americans and civil war stories. He spent a long time studying different tribes all around the United States. He has brought out the voice of the Native Americans which was muffled and silenced by the army and government. This book brought much awareness to a cause many had forgotten about, and to the shock of many when they realized he was not a Native American. Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee tells the stories of many Native American tribes and their hardships when facing the government, army, and settlers. While reading this book, I came to quite a shock. I learned the point of view that was hidden in history books, the loss instead of the win, and the sadness felt throughout the book that made it unpleasant to read. I believe this book has brought to light the mistreatment of Native Americans in the past, the main hardships including countless false treaties, harsh treatments from the settlers, and the unjust massacres. I found this book to be quite a difficult read but incredibly worth it. It is written in such a manner that you feel immersed, you feel the all the emotions and imagine how everything came to be. It is figurative, but also incredibly factual. In the beginning of almost every chapter, before the actual start, there is small paragraph with the year and the events in that following year, a quote, or

This movie was pleasantly surprising. It was an enjoyable watch and told a story that kept the plot line and details close to the real history of the Sioux Indians’ lives, starting with The Battle at Little Big Horn.

Unfortunately, for Native Americans their experience since initial contact with White Europeans has been a constant struggle. The very existence of Native American’s culture, religion, language, and land, and their form of political organizations have been threatened since the White Europeans began colonization in the regions indigenous to the Native Americans. Evidently, the White European’s misunderstanding of the American Indian has been a motivating factor in the poor treatment administered towards them. Not to mention, the various tribes had warfare amongst themselves, which perhaps gave the Europeans a reason to believe they were violent people and ignore any feeling of guilt for partaking in warfare with them as well. Upon arrival,

The West prior to and after the Civil War was largely unpopulated by the white man, the Indians, as a result, dominated the landscape mostly undisturbed. However, this separation came to a halt as legion of white pioneers invaded the great plains, displacing the Indians and “civilizing” the West. With tensions rising, the government attempted to make treaties that gave the Indians designated areas to live. What the government failed to realize was that there wasn’t a primary Indian hierarchy and that the people in charge of upholding these treaters were corrupt. Inability to control the nomadic people and growing anger amongst the Indian ranks lead to many bloody skirmishes between the Indians and the U.S. Army. The Indian’s had a short lived victory at the Battle of Little Big Horn, “Custer’s Last Stand.” Eventually, the U.S. Army forced the Indians to surrender and corralled them into reservations where they silently suffered for generations as the government attempted to assimilate them.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson, provides a comprehensive analysis of an attempt by the government to annihilate the native Indians. In her book Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, she discusses the well-calculated assault by the Whites on the Plain Indians. Behind this move was not the manifestation of destiny but rather politics; politics almost wiped out the natives. To illustrate the role of politics, this paper discusses the specific role of tariff reforms, farmers’ alliances, republicans and democrats, the silverites, the statehood process, and the spoils system.

When researching genocide in America, one quickly comes across the years of fifteen hundred through nineteen hundred, when the Native American Indians were persecuted. An estimated twelve million Native American Indians that where recorded in the year fifteen hundred was down to two hundred and thirty seven thousand by the nineteen hundreds. This is considered the worst human holocaust the world has ever seen. It lasted for four centuries, going across two continents. America could also be accused of expulsion. America wanted to expand into the western frontiers. Our government wanted to forcefully make Native American Indians into farmers and ranchers. The U.S. government purposely destroyed their flora and fauna, which the Natives used for food and other purposes. America is also accused of destroying their buffalo herds and exposing them to smallpox. The U.S. is charged with these and many other barbaric forms of genocide and expulsion and almost bringing the Native American Indians to a complete extinction. (Leah Trabich, 1997), (HNN,

Elliot Erwitt’s piece titled Wounded Knee, South Dakota (Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 1969) is a photograph of a traditional church standing alone atop a small hill. The seemingly ordinary black and white picture stands out amongst the surrounding pieces due to the fact that a building is the focal point. The piece illustrates a presence of a higher power due to which most of the components are pointed toward the church. Not only that, but there is also a metaphorical representation of heaven and hell by cause of coloration and even placement of specific articles in the piece.

The idea of Manifest Destiny was expressed in many different ways throughout the movie “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” In the movie, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” it tells the story of Manifesting Destiny in the lives of the Native Americans that suffered from it. The lifestyle that the natives lived in, and the colonized people lived in were something incomparable. The perspective on life that the whites had was more about money and power. The perspective that the Natives had were about family, survival, and ritual. As the whites expanded they pushed their needs of lifestyle over the lands of the natives causing the to slowly lose their culture.

The movie “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” was an okay film that represented events that occurred during the time America was fighting for land ownership over the Native Americans, mainly the Sioux. The movie was enjoyable and seemed to be an accurate depiction of the time period and the factors involved on both sides. The idea that a movie can represent two different perspectives that are major point of views in the average American’s history, is absolutely unbelieveable. The point of view of the white soldier and the native american are two complex and differentiated majorities. The movie “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” accomplished a believable representation of both sides. As well as, depicted an understandable time period, and what occurred in the time of war.

Traditionally, the histories of Native America came from the perspectives of Anglo-European Americans. In the 1970s author Dee Brown changed the history of the Native American past with his popular narrative Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. Brown’s thesis claims that his narrative seeks to provide a history of the American West from the perspective of the Native American. Brown attempts to uncover the identity of the Native American from this prospective.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a historical non-fiction book was written by Dee Brown, published by New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, presented insight of European, and later American treatment of Native American Indians. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee took place in the era of 1860 to 1890, which was a great period of violence, greed, audacity, sentimentality, and almost reverential attitude toward the ideal of personal freedom for those who possessed it. During this time, the culture and civilization of Native American Indians were utterly destroyed as myths of American Manifest Destiny arose; great tales of fur traders, mountain men, cowboys and such. Dee Brown’s book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee gave rise to a rare, but insightful view of American Indian

In the introduction of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Brown states that “Only occasionally was the voice of an Indian heard, and then more often than not it was recorded by the pen of a white man”. He then speaks of the countless myths that were told by mountain man, fur traders, and even gamblers regarding the American West, but there was never a myth that held a lasting impression told by the Native Americans. Although the Indian’s voices may have been heard, they were never listened to and as the book unfolds, Brown seeks to finally tell the story of the American West between the years of 1860 and 1890 through the perspective of the Native Americans. He aims to recall and rectify the injustice done upon them, and achieves this by incorporating photographs, quotations, and firsthand descriptions within the book to authenticate the

"Written within the Nineteen Seventies, Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee remains a outstanding, important history of the Plains Indians. this is often stating an excellent deal. Beside ambiguous learning of full general, and perhaps a survey or 2 of Dances With Wolves, i would wander that the majority Americans do not know or assume abundant concerning this story. That bodes well, since it's ne'er amusing to think about the race murder submitted by your progenitors.