Bookin' It
The perfect literary companion for your Old West vacations.
Categories: Featured Travel Stories
By: TW Editors 03/01/2008
PINE RIDGE RESERVATION, SD
“Red Cloud’s Oglalas were settled in the southwest corner of the reservation at Wazi Ahanhan, Pine Ridge. Here the various bands of Oglalas made permanent camps along creeks flowing north to White River—the Yellow Medicine, Porcupine Trail, and Wounded Knee…. The agencies would remain there for almost a century, but most of the 35,000 square miles of the Great Sioux Reservation would gradually be taken from the Indians,” wrote Dee Brown in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
The year was 1877, and a number of Indian tribes felt the downside of their victory over Custer at Little Bighorn—an angry United States, bent on subjugating the natives and penning them in on small tracts of land.
Author Dee Brown—he would have been 100 this year—produced a landmark study of the Indian Wars when he wrote Bury My Heart in 1970. It presented the viewpoints of the Indians as they headed toward an inevitable fate, which culminated in the Wounded Knee battle/massacre in 1890. (By the way, the book is much more comprehensive and gripping than the TV miniseries that aired in 2007.)
If you were to visit Pine Ridge today, well, it’s not a pretty sight. Un-employment affects 35 percent of its citizens. About 61 percent of the Indians live below the federal poverty line. The average male life expectancy: 47 years old. Last year, the Oglala Sioux opened a $20-million casino, attempting to cash in on gambling the way other tribes have done. The verdict is still out.
Show your support for the tribe
by participating in the Oglala’s guided hunts or by donating to “Backpacks
for Pine Ridge,” a project that provides Oglala children backpacks and school supplies for the year. You can donate to Winton Rd. First Church of God, 6200 Winton Rd. Fairfield, OH 45014 or at backpacksforpineridge.blogspot.com via paypal. One hundred percent of the money raised will go to Pine Ridge.
Trip Lit:
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
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