One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
1998 • 464 pages
Ratings11
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings11
Average rating3.8
One Thousand White Women is the story of May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women who, under the auspices of the U.S. government, travel to the western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among the Cheyenne Indians. The covert and controversial "Brides for Indians" program, launched by the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, is intended to help assimilate the Indians into the white man's world.
Series
1 primary bookOne Thousand White Women is a 1-book series first released in 1998 with contributions by Jim Fergus.
Reviews with the most likes.
I tend not to rest my estimation of the quality of a book on unsavory elements included, understanding that violence is sometimes necessary for realism, plot, theme or character development. However, in this case, Fergus abandoned realism and character integrity early on, stretching his historic setting with unrealistic and misplaced values (which I hesitate to call feminism, for reasons that I'll get to.) Therefore, there is little excuse for the repeated sexual assault scenes, especially given that Fergus seemed to expect the reader to casually forgive the assailants as easily as his protagonists did. (So easily that the narrator, who was expected to be a reliable, sympathetic narrator, refers to the rape of another character as “nonconsensual” in scare quotes.)
Similarly, there is little excuse for Fergus' rampant use of the N-word. It's supposed to be a historic piece? Thanks, I got that without the casual slurs. I don't agree with censoring (or self-censoring) literature, but if you're going to be throwing around loaded words/scenarios, do it for a reason.
Fantastic idea. Execution lacking.
