Michael: Between 1872 and 1874, white hunters killed over 3.5 million buffalo on the Great Plains. The Plains Indians, for whom the buffalo was life itself, killed only 150,000 in that same period. Kevin: Whoa. That’s a staggering difference. That wasn't a hunt. That was an extermination. Michael: Exactly. And that number, that cold, hard fact, is the perfect entry point into the book we're discussing today: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown. Kevin: A book that is, to put it mildly, an absolute gut punch. It’s famous for being one of the most heartbreaking reads in American history. Michael: It is. And what makes it so powerful is how Dee Brown wrote it. He wasn't a traditional academic historian; he was a librarian. He spent years digging through dusty government archives, reading the actual transcripts of treaty councils, and finding the letters and firsthand accounts of the Native American leaders themselves. Kevin: So this isn't just history about them, it's history told, as much as possible, by them. In their own words. Michael: Precisely. He gives voice to the people who were systematically silenced. The book completely flips the script on the heroic "cowboys and Indians" myth. It forces you to turn around and face eastward, to see the conquest of the West from the perspective of its victims. Kevin: It’s a monumental task. How do you even begin to tell a story that sprawling and that tragic? Where do you start? Michael: You start with one nation, one story of betrayal, to understand the pattern. And a powerful place to begin is with the Diné, the people we know as the Navajos.

Kevin: The Navajos. I think most people have a vague idea of their story, but the details in this book are just brutal. Michael: They are. And their story isn't one of a single, dramatic battle. It’s a story of a slow, grinding, strategic strangulation. For years, the Navajos had a complex relationship with the Mexicans and the U.S. government in the New Mexico territory. But when the U.S. Army decided they wanted the land, the policy shifted. Kevin: And this is where we meet Manuelito, right? He’s a key figure in this chapter. Michael: He is. Manuelito was a prominent Navajo leader, a war chief, but he initially sought peace. He signed treaties, he tried to coexist. But the Army kept pushing. They built Fort Defiance right on the Navajos' prime grazing land, and then forbade them from using it. When Navajo livestock wandered onto the pasture, soldiers would just shoot them. Kevin: That sounds less like keeping the peace and more like a deliberate provocation. Michael: It was. And it led to constant, low-level conflict. But the event that truly shattered any illusion of peace was the horse race at Fort Wingate. Kevin: Oh man, this story. I couldn't believe it when I read it. Michael: It’s insane. In 1861, there was a period of relative calm. Soldiers and Navajos were trading, and they started holding these horse races. It became a big social event. One day, a major race is set up: Manuelito, who the soldiers nicknamed 'Pistol Bullet,' on his Navajo pony, against an Army lieutenant on a quarter horse. Bets are flying—money, blankets, livestock. Kevin: A friendly competition. What could go wrong? Michael: Everything. As the race starts, Manuelito’s pony veers off the track. He’s lost. But when they check his gear, they find his bridle rein has been cleanly slashed with a knife. Kevin: Sabotage. It was rigged from the start. Michael: Blatantly. The Navajos, furious, demand a rerun. The soldier-judges refuse. They declare the lieutenant the winner and start a victory parade to collect their bets. The Navajos, feeling cheated and humiliated, rush the fort, but the gates are slammed shut. When one Navajo tries to force his way in, a sentinel shoots him dead. Kevin: And that’s when it explodes. Michael: It becomes a massacre. The soldiers just open fire. They shoot and bayonet Navajos who are trapped outside the gates, including women and children who had come to watch the race. It was a complete betrayal, a slaughter over a rigged horse race. Kevin: They massacred people over a crooked bet? What was the ultimate goal here? Was it just random cruelty, or was there a larger strategy at play? Michael: That’s the crucial question, and the book makes the answer chillingly clear. The goal was removal. The man in charge, General James Carleton, had a vision for the territory, and it didn't include Navajos. He saw their land as full of potential for gold mining and settlement. The Navajos were simply in the way. Kevin: So all these incidents, the provocations, the massacres... they were just tools to force them out. Michael: Exactly. Carleton gave the Navajos an ultimatum: surrender and relocate to a desolate reservation called Bosque Redondo, or be destroyed. He famously said, "This war shall be pursued against you if it takes years... until you cease to exist or move." Kevin: And to enforce this, he brings in the legendary frontiersman, Kit Carson. Michael: He does. And Carson, though reportedly reluctant, carries out a brutal scorched-earth campaign. He marches his troops through Navajo lands, burning their fields, destroying their food stores, and slaughtering their livestock. Their most devastating blow was in Canyon de Chelly, the Navajos' sacred stronghold. Carson's troops destroyed their homes and, most painfully, their beloved peach orchards, which had been cultivated for generations. Kevin: They were starving them out. It wasn't a war of combat; it was a war of attrition. Michael: It was. And it worked. Starving, freezing, and broken, the Navajos began to surrender. And this led to the final tragedy: The Long Walk. Thousands of Navajo men, women, and children were forced to march over 300 miles to Bosque Redondo. Kevin: And the conditions on that walk, and at the reservation, were horrific. Michael: Unspeakable. Hundreds died on the journey. At Bosque Redondo, the land was barren. The water was alkaline and made them sick. The crops failed year after year. They were living in squalor, dying of disease and starvation, all while being held as prisoners of war. It was a concentration camp, designed to break their spirit completely. Kevin: A slow, grinding, and deliberate destruction of a people. It’s a horrifying story. Michael: It is. And it sets the stage for understanding that this wasn't an isolated event. This was a pattern. But sometimes, the destruction wasn't slow and grinding. Sometimes, it was a sudden, terrifying flash of violence.

Kevin: Right, and that brings us to the Southern Cheyennes and the Sand Creek Massacre. If the Navajo story is about a slow, strategic strangulation, this one feels like a sudden, psychotic break. Michael: That's a perfect way to put it. Because at the heart of this story is a chief who did everything the U.S. government asked of him. His name was Black Kettle. He was a peace chief, renowned for his efforts to coexist with the white settlers. Kevin: He wasn't a warrior agitating for a fight. He was actively seeking protection. Michael: Actively. He even traveled to Washington and met with President Lincoln. He believed in the power of treaties and the honor of the U.S. government. But the situation in the Colorado Territory was spiraling out of control. A faction of the military, led by Colonel John Chivington, was determined to wage war. Kevin: Chivington. He’s the villain of this chapter, and he sounds like a monster. Michael: He was a former minister who became a military commander, and he had an almost pathological hatred of Indians. His standing order to his troops was to "kill Cheyennes whenever and wherever found." There was no distinction between peaceful or hostile. Kevin: And this policy had immediate, tragic consequences. The book tells the story of Lean Bear. Michael: Another peace chief, a friend of Black Kettle. In the spring of 1864, Lean Bear saw a column of soldiers approaching. He rode out to meet them, not with weapons, but with the peace medal Lincoln had given him proudly displayed on his chest and his treaty papers in hand. He was signaling his friendship. Kevin: And how did the soldiers respond? Michael: They formed a line and, without a word, opened fire, killing him and the warriors with him. It was an unprovoked murder of a diplomat. This is the atmosphere Black Kettle was trying to navigate. He was terrified, but he still believed peace was possible. Kevin: So what does he do? Michael: He seeks out the commander at Fort Lyon, Major Wynkoop, who is sympathetic. Wynkoop arranges a council in Denver with the governor and Colonel Chivington. Black Kettle goes, pleads for peace, and is told to bring his people to Sand Creek, near the fort, where they will be considered under military protection. He is even given an American flag to fly over his camp as a sign of peace. Kevin: He's following every instruction. He's putting his faith in the system, in the flag. Michael: Completely. He gathers about 700 people, mostly women, children, and old men, at the designated spot on Sand Creek. The young warriors are away hunting. This is a peaceful, vulnerable village, under a U.S. flag, believing they are safe. Kevin: And then Chivington arrives. Michael: And then Chivington arrives. On the morning of November 29, 1864, he leads 700 soldiers in a surprise attack on the sleeping village. Black Kettle immediately raises the American flag and a white flag of surrender. But Chivington's men charge in, firing indiscriminately. Kevin: It’s just a slaughter. Michael: It's a massacre in the truest sense of the word. The soldiers hunt down fleeing people. They kill babies, children, and women. An elder chief, White Antelope, stands in front of his lodge with his arms folded, singing his death song, until he is shot down. The soldiers then commit unspeakable atrocities, mutilating the bodies of the dead and taking scalps and other body parts as trophies. Kevin: And Chivington's justification for killing infants… it’s one of the most chilling lines in the book. Michael: "Nits make lice." That was his reasoning. The dehumanization was total. He saw them not as human beings, but as vermin to be exterminated, from the old to the very young. Kevin: How could they possibly call this a battle? They paraded the scalps through the streets of Denver, didn't they? Michael: They did. They were celebrated as heroes. Chivington reported it as a great victory over hostile warriors. It was a complete lie, but it was the narrative that suited the expansionist agenda. The Sand Creek Massacre destroyed the influence of every peace chief. It proved that accommodation was suicide. It united the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux in a war of revenge that set the plains on fire for years.

Kevin: Wow. Hearing those two stories back-to-back… the slow, calculated destruction of the Navajos and the sudden, frenzied massacre at Sand Creek. What's the thread that connects them? What's the book's ultimate point in laying out these horrors one after another? Michael: The thread is policy. That's the core argument of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. These weren't isolated incidents or the actions of a few rogue commanders. They were the direct result of a national policy of expansion, Manifest Destiny, that viewed Native Americans as an obstacle to be removed. Kevin: So whether it was slow and strategic, like the Long Walk, or fast and brutal, like Sand Creek, the end goal was identical. Michael: Identical. The goal was to clear the land. Dee Brown’s genius was in meticulously documenting this pattern. He lays out the evidence, tribe by tribe, broken treaty by broken treaty, until the sheer, crushing weight of it is undeniable. He dismantles the myth of the heroic West and replaces it with a history of systematic injustice, told in the voices of those who endured it. Kevin: It’s a book that really changes how you see the country's history. It’s not just about the past, is it? It feels deeply relevant to how we think about justice and memory today. Michael: Absolutely. The book was published in 1970, right in the middle of the Civil Rights movement and the rise of American Indian activism. It landed like a bombshell and gave historical weight to their fight. It forced a generation to confront the dark foundation upon which much of the American West was built. Kevin: And it all comes back to who gets to tell the story. For a century, the story was told by the victors, by Chivington's men. Dee Brown, the librarian, went into the archives and found the other side. Michael: He did. And that leads to the most powerful challenge the book offers. Brown wrote that Americans have always read about this period facing westward, with the pioneers. He said this book should be read facing eastward, from the perspective of the people who saw the invaders coming. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Kevin: It really does. What other parts of our history, our national myths, have we only ever looked at from one direction? Michael: That's the question that lingers long after you've finished the last page. It’s a profound and necessary challenge. For our listeners, if this discussion has you thinking about the stories we inherit and the perspectives we might be missing, we'd love to hear your thoughts. You can find us on our social channels and join the conversation. Kevin: It’s a heavy topic, but an essential one. Thanks for walking us through it, Michael. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.