Yuku free message boards

It is hard to read this book and not feel biased. I was stunned as I read in chapter 4 about the attack at Sand Creek. Reading of the soldiers attacking the Indian camp during the night while they were asleep and murdering and dismembering 105 innocent women and children struck me with awe. This isn't fiction. It isn't a horror novel. These are real events that happened to real people.

There seemed to be indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children. There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed, and four or five bucks outside. The squaws offered no resistance. Every one I saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child, as I thought, lying by her side. Captain Soule afterwards told me that such was the fact.-page 90

Wow. No matter how hard I try to understand this I can't. I know that humans will compete for land, food and other resources and battles will be fought. But what drives a person to such savagery? I can't even comprehend the amount of prejudice and hatred that an individual must feel toward a group of people to cause them to act with such brutality. Can you see ever walking up to any defenseless pregnant woman and killing her and then cutting her open and ripping an unborn child from her belly? How can humans be so cruel to fellow humans? What could possibly justify these actions? Even if the Indians had provoked the soldiers, nothing could have made this excusable.

As I read further, the chapter went on to describe how some of the Indians from the tribe that was attacked moved north. There they went out and attacked and killed some soldiers near the fort in an act of revenge. At first I found myself feeling happy for them, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that their acts weren't that unlike those of the soldiers that killed their families. These soldiers were in no way connected to those that had attacked their tribe. They were near their fort, not seeking battle. I can understand why the Indians would be angry and distrustful and even hate white soldiers, but that still doesn't justify attacking and killing innocent people. For all they know, some of the soldiers they killed may have been friendly and helpful. They likely had families of their own to care for.

Prejudice causes so many problems. Nothing positive can result from assuming what a person is like simply because of their race. Both the Indians and the whites were guilty of that. The Indians had good reason to be angry about the situation with the whites. The broken treaties, the invasion of their land, the disregard for nature - those things could justly result in negative feelings. But no doubt there were white folks who didn't hold those views. There were whites who were friends with the Indians. Some even chose to live among them, appreciating their culture and way of life. Indiscriminate disregard for human life is never justifiable.

I found it interesting that Yellow Woman, who had been married to a white man and had children with him, left him after the Sand Creek raid because she wanted nothing to do with whites. Later, in an act of irony, it was a fellow Indian from a related tribe who killed her.

This book evokes a lot of emotion, mostly anger and sadness for what the Indians experienced. Even though I realize that it's a biased account of the events, I like being able to relate to the situation from their point of view. Like Steve said, much of what we've been presented with is from the biased perspective of the whites. And much of what I've learned about the Indians has to do with their current way of life. Many still live on reservations where they experience a high incidence of poverty, illiteracy, and alcoholism. Reading of their history is interesting. Their heritage has many positive qualities, but their culture was ultimately stripped from them and collectively they were forced into submission and oppression.

Cheryl