Customer Reviews

Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings

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In "Century of Dishonor" author Helen jackson has written an indepth and scholarly account of the US government's policy of instiutionalized "Indian" extermination. Jackson's account of the infamous "Trail of Tears" in which 17,000 Cherokees were forcibly removed from their homes and driven at bayonet point to Oklahoma by the US Army,an unspeakable atrocity in which only half the Cherokee population survived. In her summation of the treatment accorded to the Cherokees, Helen Jackson writes that "In the whole history of our Government's dealing with the Indian tribes, there is no record so black as the record of perfidy to this nation. There will come a time in the remote future when, to the student of American history, it will seem well-nigh incredible."

"Century of Dishonor" remains essential reading for those who wonder where Hitler obtained the background material on concentration camps and genocide: US government frontier policy. A captivating, astute and indespensible addition to American history.

Helen Hunt Jackson was the widowed wife of a succesful Pennsilvanian buisness man. She was acostomed to many trips to the frontier west, upon which she had many interactions with the local indians there. She was greatly distresed at their condition. Which led her to become an author. She once said that regalrdless of where you open the book on the american indian, there is not a year or page without a dark stain. This book was as influential on the people of her time as Harriet Beacher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was on the people in antebellum america. Certainly a must read for all history enthusiasts