A Century of Dishonor

by Helen Hunt Jackson

Overview

Originally published over 100 years ago, A Century of Dishonor is Helen Jackson's eye-opening sketch of the U.S. government's often shameful mishandling of what was called the "Indian problem". Using official documents as authentic research materials, Jackson asserts that the government and citizens of the United States were the cause of the "problems", and not the Native peoples.

Broken treaties, inhuman treatment, restricted to reservations unfit for habitation or traditional lifestyle ... all of these actions were taken against Indian tribes by a government that treated them with less consideration and compassion than that of a foreign country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781420978674
Publisher:	Digireads.com
Publication date:	11/30/2021
Pages:	334
Sales rank:	219,648
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) was an American poet and activist. Born Helen Maria Fiske in Amherst, Massachusetts, she was raised in a unitarian family alongside a sister, Anne. By seventeen years of age, she had lost both of her parents and was taken in by an uncle. Educated at Ipswich Female Seminar and the Abbott Institute, she was a classmate and friend of Emily Dickinson. At 22, she married Captain Edward Bissell Hunt, with whom she had two sons. Following the deaths of her children and husband, Hunt Jackson dedicated herself to poetry and moved to Newport in 1866. “Coronation” appeared in The Atlantic in 1869, launching Hunt Jackson’s career and helping her find publication in The Century, The Nation, and Independent. Following several years in Europe, she visited California and developed a fascination with the American West. After contracting tuberculosis, she stayed at Seven Falls, a treatment center in Colorado Springs, where she met her second husband William Sharpless Jackson. Praised early on for her elegiac verses by such figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hunt Jackson turned her attention to the plight of Native Americans in 1879 following a lecture in Boston by Ponca chief Standing Bear. She began to lobby government officials by mail and in person, launching and publishing her own investigations of systemic abuse in the New York Independent, Century Magazine, and the Daily Tribune. In 1881, she published A Century of Dishonor, a history of seven tribes who faced oppression, displacement, and genocide under American expansion. She sent her book to every member of Congress and continued to work as an activist and writer until her death from stomach cancer. Ramona (1884), a political novel, was described upon publication in the North American Review as “unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an American woman.”

Table of Contents

	Preface	V
	Introduction	1
Chapter I.	Introductory	9
Chapter II.	The Delawares	32
Chapter III.	The Cheyennes	66
Chapter IV.	The Nez Perces	103
Chapter V.	The Sioux	136
Chapter VI.	The Poncas	186
Chapter VII.	The Winnebagoes	218
Chapter VIII.	The Cherokees	257
Chapter IX.	Massacres of Indians by Whites	298
I.	The Conestoga Massacre	298
II.	The Gnadenhutten Massacre	317
III.	Massacres of Apaches	324
Chapter X.	Conclusion	336
	Appendix
I.	The Sand Creek Massacre	343
II.	The Ponca Case	359
III.	Testimonies to Indian Character	374
IV.	Outrages Committed on Indians by Whites	381
V.	Extracts from the Report of the Commission sent to treat with the Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, in Canada	386
VI.	Account of some of the old Grievances of the Sioux	389
VII.	Letter from Sarah Winnemucca, an Educated Pah-Ute Woman	395
VIII.	Laws of the Delaware Nation of Indians	396
IX.	Account of the Cherokee who Invented the Cherokee Alphabet	404
X.	Prices paid by White Men for Scalps	405
XI.	Extract from Treaty with Cheyennes in 1865	406
XII.	Wood-cutting by Indians in Dakota	407
XIII.	Sequel to the Walla Walla Massacre	407
XIV.	An Account of the Numbers, Location, and Social and Industrial Condition of each Important Tribe and Band of Indians within the United States	411
XV.	Report on the Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California	458