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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee expresses an Native American perspective of the injustices and betrayals of the US government. Brown views the government's dealings as continued efforts to destroy the culture, religion, and way of life of Native American peoples.
He opens noting that the explorer Christopher Columbus named the Native Americans Indios because of his search for the East Indies. Given the many differing dialects and languages of succeeding European colonists, the term in English became Indians. Life as known to the indigenous people of the Americas would never be the same after Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492.
Brown describes different tribes of Native Americans and their relations to the US federal government during the years 1860-1890. He begins with the Navajo, the Apache, and the other tribes of the American Southwest who were displaced as California and the surrounding areas were colonized by European Americans. Brown chronicles the changing and sometimes conflicting attitudes both of US authorities, such as General Custer, and Indian chiefs, particularly Geronimo, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. He describes the Indian chiefs' attempts to save their peoples, by peace, war, or retreat.
The latter part of the book focuses primarily on the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes of the North American Plains. They were among the last to be moved on to Indian reservations. It culminates with the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the deaths of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the US Army's killing of mostly unarmed Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, an event generally considered to mark the end of the Indian Wars.
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