One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus

In 1875, Little Wolf, chief of the Cheyenne nation, traveled to Washington to suggest to President Ulysses S. Grant that peace between the Whites and Cheyenne could be established if the President were to give the Cheyenne 1,000 white women as wives in exchange for 1,000 horses. The Cheyenne believed that by marrying these white women and raising children from these unions that their children would assimilate into the White culture. The President, completely horrified by the suggestion, turns Little Wolf away as his wife faints to the floor. That, my friends, is where this story stops being based on fact and begins being fiction. Yes, Little Wolf did indeed propose this deal to President Grant and was turned away. But author Jim Fergus takes the story one step further, speculating on what would have happened if President Grant had secretly agreed to this proposal.

Ads begin to be posted in papers looking for woman to voluntarily agree to travel across the country to marry “men from the West.” The government names the program “Brides for Indians” and when enough women cannot be found, the government begins recruiting women from jails, penitentiaries, or even mental institutions, offering full pardons for participation. We meet May Dodd, the author of the journals we will follow at a mental institution, where she has been kidnapped and imprisoned by her family for engaging in an affair with a man out of wedlock from which she mothered two children. May joins the program and finds herself traveling west with the other brides, some white and some black. All have agreed to stay with their soon-to-be Cheyenne husbands for two years and upon completion have the option of leaving.

The women arrive to meet their to-be-husbands and the tribe to which they now belong. May marries Little Wolf and finds herself sharing a tipi with his two other wives who don’t seem to appreciate her company. As these women acclimate to the lives of the Cheyenne, they find themselves more displaced then ever, not knowing to which society they truly belong.

This book was truly riveting. The Cheyenne culture is so rich and interesting, as are the lives of the indentured brides. They experience prejudice from their original culture and in turn learn more about themselves through their own prejudices and stereotypes. Though I finished this book days ago, I find myself continuing to think about the characters, the plot and the twists on which Fergus led me. It was wonderfully written, thoroughly researched and a joy to read.

~Breana- Children's Assistant