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One Thousand White Womenby Jim Fergus |
Lois Shaevel: The subtitle is:
The Journals of May Dodd. The author introduces a character in
the prologue whose great-grandmother was committed to an asylum
but was rumored to have run off to live with the Indians.
The novel intoduces us to May Dodd though her journals as she
was offered release from the asylum in exchange for her agreeing
to go out West and become a bride to a Cherokee warrior in a program
offered through the U.S. government. These journals gives us a view
of the hard journey and the hardships endured by her and the other
women in the program as they adapt to the Cherokee way of life,
learn the language and even bear children. I felt a real empathy
for her and began to feel that the whites were the real savages.
Although a work of fiction, I feel that it gives a good glimpse to
a way of life that was thoroughly destroyed prior to the end of the
nineteenth century.
Rating: *****
