One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

One of my husband’s coworkers loaned me this book when she learned that I like historical fiction. The premise intrigued me. History notes that the Cheyenne Chief Little Wolf asked the United States government to send 1000 women to marry Cheyenne men and teach them how to live in the white world. The United States government declined. In One Thousand White Women, Jim Fergus poses the question, “What if the government declined publicly, but secretly sent 1000 women to marry Cheyenne men?” Thus begins an exploration of cultures. Through May Dodd, one of the white women who volunteered to marry an unknown Cheyenne man, we live the atrocities committed by Cheyenne and white, men and women, rich and poor. We also live their compassion. Although I had trouble accepting the premise, I eventually released my doubts about white men sending their white women to mate with “animals.” Those doubts were never overcome, but I became so engrossed in the story that I simply didn’t care any longer. Other than that, I only had one problem with the novel. Midway through the story, the white women are kidnapped by an enemy tribe. They are raped before their husbands rescue them. During the rescue the women kill and scalp their kidnappers and glory in their revenge. Fair enough. But later, the white preacher, sent with the women to help “civilize” the Cheyenne, rapes a Cheyenne boy. The boy’s family beats the preacher. The white women feel pity for the preacher, tend his wounds, and try to comfort him. When they were raped they wanted revenge, but when a child was raped they didn’t. This happens after the women have come to see the Cheyenne as people and not animals. Their sympathy for the preacher isn’t logical. If anything, the women would have been more outraged at the child’s rape than their own. Three out of four bookworms.


Disclaimer: My great great grandmother was Cherokee. I wear a t-shirt with a photo of Geronimo and company that says “The Original Department of Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorists since 1492.” No, I didn't design it, but you can get your own. Just click on the t-shirt at the left.