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Aug 05, 2020janerf rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
It has a lot of shocking and heart-rending information, and I am thankful that I have that information. For example, our dear R W Emerson hated war, all war - yet heartily supported annexation of all north American territory to the U.S. Cognitive dissonance rules even among the most insightful of us. However, I am, overall, pretty disimpressed with her work. It is disorganized, its chapters, and its rambling and circuitous coverage of specific material. The editing itself seems to have really missed a lot of errors and awkwardnesses. Apart from what she does say, Dunbar doesn't cover in any meaningful way any of the initiatives that Indian nations took to normalize relationships with settlers and colonizers . She characterizes Indian actions as 'resistance' - Dunbar even characterizes Wovoka's Ghost Dance as 'resistance' to colonizers! I know from reading "God's Red Son" that Wovoka urged the people of native nations to go to school, get jobs, earn money, and settle into a settler's way of life. I really wanted to know about the practices of the Iroquois contributiing to the U.S. constitution, and about the Confederation of the Forty-Four of the Cheyenne and Arapaho (which was dealt a terrible blow by the Sand Creek Massacre), and about the councils held at Council Bluffs on the banks of the Missouri River. But nope. Not a word does Dunbar give us on any of these engagements where the Indians tried their best to survive among violent and difficult newcomers. Disorganization example - Dunbar talks at some length about Buffalo Soldiers (... who, by the way, are not indigenous, but of African roots...) - and all of a sudden, she is talking about the Chicago railroad strike of 1877...!?! Editing example - there is a reference to WWII action in the Pacific, and, after having referred to Guam, she refers to 'the Northern Mariana." Two problems here. The Northern Mariana Islands are referred to as 'the Northern Mariana Islands" or, in short, 'the Northern Marianas," and Guam is not a part of the Northern Mariana Islands (except geologically, all of them lying upon the Marianas Trench). (I lived in Guam 2 years, and that reference socked me in the eye.) I'm not clear at all about the relevance of two major threads of her book, the foreign policy of the United States (which continues to be violent, militaristic, and colonial) and the savagery of any military encounter labeled 'war.' I wanted to know about the indigenous experience - not the Guatemalan or the Iraqi experience. I'm sure that Guatemala and Iraq deserve some of my attention - but in this book? What's the point? Yes, Americans are mean and self serving. Everywhere. And war is hell. Civilians get brutalized. Always. None of this coverage in her book is helpful or meaningful. Worse, she seems to insert specific descriptions of individual depredations just to shock. I googled for criticism of her and her work - and found nothing but good things being said about her and this book. Even an 11-page article in a literary publication was a positive review. Sigh. I was expecting much more. I'll look for something that gives a more complete look at this. Vine Deloria Jr springs to mind. It seems to be so important for us to understand mare about this, since we live in the middle of so many Indian peoples and reservations here in southern Nevada. PS. Really peeved me... I listened to the book. The reader pronounced "Kooba," the proper Cuban way of speaking - yet pronounced "Meksiko" !!! Natives of Mexico City ,like a colleague of mine, definitely say "Mehiko." Another gratuitous editing faux pas. Maybe the reader could have said "New Meksico," because that's how it's said today in New Mexico, but Mexicans from Mexico today say "Mehiko." (Unless they're talking to white occupying colonizers...?)