West Indian Immigrants: A Black Success Story?
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West Indian immigrants to the United States fare better than native-born African Americans on a wide...
The Other Trail of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians
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The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was the culmination of the United States' policy to force native...
From the Deep Woods to Civilization
7.0
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"Has a many-sided appeal …. This stimulating book is one of the few that really deserve the...
A Thousand Moons
9.5
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From the Costa Book of the Year-winning author of Days Without End Even when you come out of...
Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Post American Civil War Trigger warning: rape Native American Indians
David McK (3425 KP) rated Dances With Wolves (1990) in Movies
Mar 14, 2021
Once he gets there, he is posted to an abandoned fort, with everyone who had knowledge of this posting then (for plot reasons) getting killed off.
Initially left on his own, he soon encounters a nearby tribe of Sioux Indians and, as the film progresses, finds himself drawn more and more to their way of life, eventually earning the name 'Dances with Wolves' before the inevitable happens and the US army starts making their way into Sioux territory.
Unusual (for it's time) in that this film is largely sympathetic to the Native Americans plight, with some stunning cinematography, beautiful music and some stellar acting but, holy moly, boy is this one long film: even the 'standard' version is roughly 3 hours long!
Braddock's Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution
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On July 9, 1755, British and colonial troops under the command of General Edward Braddock suffered a...
ClareR (5726 KP) rated Future Home of the Living God in Books
Aug 2, 2018
Society goes mad, the giver collapses, and a religious government takes over. Another story where a woman is just a womb and the baby is the only important thing. This frustrates me: there’s only a finite number of women, and surely only a small number who are able to give birth to babies who haven’t ‘devolved’? Why risk them dying? Why force them to ‘breed’? I just don’t get these stories. I liked the first person, diary entry approach to the novel, by the way. It works really well.
This is very similar to A Handmaids Tale: men and religion controls the state, a declining birth rate, Big Brother is watching (thanks to George Orwell for that little sort device). Nice touch with the Native American Indians, by the way.
I have an idea - how about a (good, well-written) story where there’s a declining birth rate, men are to blame and WOMEN are in charge?! Has anyone written that yet? I’d buy it! Any suggestions will probably be read!
Lost in the Wilderness
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"As you drive across the midwest of America, one is in awe of the vast endless landscape. If the...
Photography
The Spirits of Nature (Spirits of Nature #1)
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He taught her the true spirit of unconditional love and devotion. She taught him that love can be...
Native American History
Hazel (1853 KP) rated Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murder and the Birth of the FBI in Books
Dec 7, 2018
It is well known that throughout history, facts have been omitted from history books. Written accounts of events ostensibly make important figures and countries appear to be in the right, whereas reality reveals otherwise. One such exclusion is the fate of the Native Americans inhabiting the southern states at the beginning of the 1900s. Children are brought up to believe the stories that “Red Indians” are bad and the cowboys are good, but this was unlikely the case. David Grann has researched into a particular period of Native American history that most people may never have heard of.<I> Killers of the Flower Moon</I> reveals the horrors innocent people faced at the hands of perfidious criminals.
The majority of the book is written as a third person narrative, recounting the lives of some of the members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. White people, believing themselves to be superior, had forced the natives off their homelands and onto rocky, unwanted ground. What they did not anticipate, however, was the abundance of oil residing beneath the surface. The Osage went from being oppressed to being the wealthiest people in the state. Full of avarice, the whites were not going to let them get away with this fortune for long.
David Grann takes a particular interest in Mollie Burkhart, an Osage member with a white husband. Mollie had three sisters, but within a few short years they were all dead, and so was her mother. Believing they had been murdered, Mollie fears for her life. Other Osage members were also being killed, as well as those who tried to investigate the spreading slaughter. However, the case remained stubbornly unsolved.
Nevertheless, there was still hope for Mollie after the arrival of Tom White, an agent of the soon to be known as Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Determined to get to the bottom of the so-called Reign of Terror, Tom and his team carefully analyse the behaviours and motives of the disingenuous citizens, narrowing down the suspects until eventually finding their duplicitous killer.
Learning about this unknown period of history is eye opening and offers a completely new view on the relations between whites and Native Americans. It was a time of prejudice and racism, not unlike the attitude towards black people emphasised with the civil rights movement in the mid-1900s. Greed was a significant motivator, particularly where making money was involved. But, David Grann does not stop here.
The final section of <i>Killers of the Flower Moon</i> is written from the author’s perspective. As a staff writer at <i>The New Yorker</i>, the evidence of the Osage murders case intrigued David Grann, but he was concerned about some unresolved holes in the story. Determined to uncover the truth, Grann conducted his own research to discover the culprits behind the undocumented murders unrelated to Mollie Burkhart’s family. What he stumbles on highlights the severity of the dark fate the Osage Indians were threatened with.
Despite being written as a narrative, it is obvious that <i>Killers of the Flower Moon</i> is a work of non-fiction. It lacks emotion and character insight, however, since it is not meant to be a fabricated story, these elements are not required. Instead, it shocks and disturbs the reader with its unbelievable truths.
An extensive biography proves the authenticity of David Grann’s revelation. With the reinforcement of FBI files, jury testimonials, statements, court transcripts, letters, telegrams, diaries and confessions, Grann produces a strong historical record of events that should not be glossed over. Without authors and books such as <i>Killers of the Flower Moon</i>, people will blindly go around believing falsehoods. The truth needs to be discovered, and readers can start by reading this book.