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

The reason I picked up this book is because it had an interesting concept. In 1875, Native Americans, seeking peace with the United States, offered to marry 1000 American white women so the cultures could mesh. In return, the government would receive 1000 horses. Though the offer was real, the government did not accept it because they found it too degrading to the women. However, Fergus’ novel asks how it would have happened if it did; telling the story through the diary of May Dodd was an apropos approach.

May was a futuristic woman, content with her sexuality, compassionate, intelligent, yet humble enough to not have any uppityness about her. She lead the other women volunteers when she felt she was needed, but otherwise left them to their own devices. The other women were a fantastic group of characters, diverse and believable. Since drastic backstories are presumably the only reason a woman of the time would volunteer to be a “savage’s” wife, they gave interesting and realistic historical tones to the novel.

Under no circumstances would I voluntarily camp out in this, though.

The story isn’t overly romantic- May’s husband, the chief, had his faults but overall the match was well-made, more political than love-based. The instances of religion were well described, both for the Native American traditions and the Christian evangelism that went on. Her language use, though derogatory for modern readers, was correct for the time, and I liked that; it showed that Fergus did his research.

Typical camp for the Cheyenne

I only wish there wasn’t so much rape. It wasn’t graphic, but it was often, and the women seemed to blow it off like it was nothing. I don’t know if it was a misconception on the male author’s part, or if it really was like that for frontier women.  I will say that, while the women seemed to have gotten over the incidents easily, I appreciate that they weren’t completely emotionally wrecked by it; they recovered, and showed that one can mend from such a horrible thing. Though in real life one can’t get over it quite so easily, I think having a positive example is better than some literature where victims of rape never get better.

Overall I recommend the novel, if only for a (relatively) short read on an interesting time in American history.

Goodreads link