The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Young Readers Adaptation)

Informationen zum Autor David Treuer is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. The author of four previous novels, most recently Prudence , and two books of nonfiction, he has also written for The New York Times , Los Angeles Times , Esquire , Slate , and The Washington Post , among others. He has a PhD in anthropology and teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California. Klappentext "Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated--if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was one hundred years ago. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee looks at Native American culture as it exists today--and the fight to preserve language and traditions"-- Leseprobe Prologue This book tells the story of what Indians in the United States have been up to in the 130 years since the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota: what we've done, what's happened to us, and what our lives have been like. It is adamantly, unashamedly, about Indian life rather than Indian death. That we even have lives­that Indians have been living in, have been shaped by, and in turn have shaped the modern world­is news to most people. The usual story told about us­or rather, about the Indian­is one of decline and death. Our story begins in unchecked freedom and communion with the earth and ends in confinement and perpetual suffering on reservations. Wounded Knee has come to stand in for much of that history. But what were the actual circumstances of this event that has taken on so much symbolic weight? In the 1860s, the U.S. government had been trying to solve the Indian problem on the Great Plains with a three-­pronged approach: negotiation, starvation, and warfare. Open war on its own had not been going too well. The Plains Indians had won decisive victories and forced the government to the treaty table. In 1868 the Lakota secured a large homeland on the Great Sioux Reservation in southwestern South Dakota and northern Nebraska. Then gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Lakota tried to enforce the terms of the 1868 treaty and throw out the gold-­seekers who rushed in. Their attempts led, directly, to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry were wiped out on June 25, 1876. During the final hours of the battle, the Lakota and Cheyenne dismounted, put away their guns, and killed the remaining cavalry with their war clubs and tomahawks in a ritual slaughter. Some Dakota women, armed with buffalo jawbones, were given the honor of dispatching the soldiers with a sharp blow behind the ear. After that defeat, the U.S. government switched tactics. Instead of confronting the Indians head-on, it encouraged widespread encroachment by settlers, reneged on treaty promises of food and clothing, and funded the wholesale destruction of the once vast buffalo herds of the Plains. By the late 1870s, an estimated five thousand bison were being killed per day. Without the bison, the Lakota and other Plains tribes could not hope to survive, at least not as they had been surviving. Their reservations might have been designed as prisons, but now they became places of refuge. With the vast buffalo herds gone and a growing white population of ranchers, hunters, railroad workers, prospectors, homesteaders, and soldiers hemming them in, the Plains Indians did what many disenfranchised people have done when threatened on all sides: they turned to God. The Indians, however, turned to God in the form of the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance religion started among the Paiute in Nevada. It promised a payoff: if Indians lived lives of harmony, worked hard, and danced the Ghost Dance, they would find...

Klappentext

"Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated--if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was one hundred years ago. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee looks at Native American culture as it exists today--and the fight to preserve language and traditions"--

Zusammenfassung
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is a story of Native American resilience and reinvention, adapted for young adults from the adult nonfiction book of the same name.

Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated—if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was one hundred years ago.
 
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee looks at Native American culture as it exists today—and the fight to preserve language and traditions. 
 
Adapted for young readers, this important young adult nonfiction book is perfect educational material for children and adults alike.

Leseprobe
Prologue

This book tells the story of what Indians in the United States have been up to in the 130 years since the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota: what we ve done, what s happened to us, and what our lives have been like. It is adamantly, unashamedly, about Indian life rather than Indian death. That we even have lives ­that Indians have been living in, have been shaped by, and in turn have shaped the modern world ­is news to most people. The usual story told about us ­or rather, about the Indian ­is one of decline and death. Our story begins in unchecked freedom and communion with the earth and ends in confinement and perpetual suffering on reservations. Wounded Knee has come to stand in for much of that history.
But what were the actual circumstances of this event that has taken on so much symbolic weight?
In the 1860s, the U.S. government had been trying to solve the Indian problem on the Great Plains with a three-­pronged approach: negotiation, starvation, and warfare. Open war on its own had not been going too well. The Plains Indians had won decisive victories and forced the government to the treaty table. In 1868 the Lakota secured a large homeland on the Great Sioux Reservation in southwestern South Dakota and northern Nebraska.
Then gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Lakota tried to enforce the terms of the 1868 treaty and throw out the gold-­seekers who rushed in. Their attempts led, directly, to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry were wiped out on June 25, 1876. During the final hours of the battle, the Lakota and Cheyenne dismounted, put away their guns, and killed the remaining cavalry with their war clubs and tomahawks in a ritual slaughter. Some Dakota women, armed with buffalo jawbones, were given the honor of dispatching the soldiers with a sharp blow behind the ear.
After that defeat, the U.S. government switched tactics. Instead of confronting the Indians head on, it encouraged widespread encroachment by settlers, reneged on treaty promises of food and clothing, and funded the wholesale destruction of the once vast buffalo herds of the Plains. By the late 1870s, an estimated five thousand bison were being killed per day.
Without the bison, the Lakota and other Plains tribes could not hope to survive, at least not as they had been surviving. Their reservations might have been designed as prisons, but now they became places of refuge. With the vast buffalo herds gone and a growing white population of ranchers, hunters, railroad workers, prospectors, homesteaders, and soldiers hemming them in, the Plains Indians did what many disenfranchised people have done when threatened on all sides: they turned to God. The Indians, however, turned to God in the form of the Ghost Dance…