A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

In 1881, Helen Hunt Jackson sat down to write what she hoped would burn itself into the American conscience. She had heard Standing Bear, a Ponca chief, tell how his people were forcibly removed from their homeland. What she found in the archives shocked her: a century of broken treaties, stolen lands, and calculated betrayal. Jackson documents seven tribes in meticulous detail: the Delaware, Cheyenne, Nez Perce, Sioux, Ponca, Winnebago, and Cherokee. She recounts the Trail of Tears, the flight of Chief Joseph, the Sand Creek Massacre, the destruction of Praying Town Indians who had converted to Christianity. Each chapter builds an irrefutable case that the United States government treated indigenous peoples as obstacles to be removed rather than nations to be respected. Jackson sent a copy of this book to every member of Congress at her own expense, begging them to redeem the nation's name. It was dismissed by critics as sentimental. It changed nothing immediately. But it kindled a fire that has never gone out.