All Guns Fired at One Time: Native Voices of Wounded Knee, 1890

For today’s book review, we have a guest reviewer with us, Amanda Takes War Bonnett, that has the scoop on the book “All Guns Fired at One Time: Native Voices of Wounded Knee, 1890” by Jerome Green! Enjoy!

This is my read for this weekend. Thankful to takoja Brittany Poor Bear, she gets me my reads faster than Amazon at times. It is a tough read for me, you know punches you in the stomach and you feel the trauma years past. Tears, prayers and smudge kind of book. Jerome Green published ‘All Guns Fired At One Time, Native Voices of Wounded Knee, 1890” last fall. Green has authored 23 other books, a veteran and graduate of BHSU and USD. He taught history at Haskell. Most book narratives of what happened at Wounded Knee sometimes run along the lines of federal Indian policy and Green centers his narratives on the gut wrenching stories of survivors and the witnesses. A lot of work obviously, went into the research in pulling together these narratives. They were gleaned from interviews, old newspaper accounts, letters, testimonies, government documents and arranged to tell the stories from the Lakota view from what happened before the massacre, during the massacre and afterwards. All from our ancestor’s point of view. Names, lots of names from those who told the stories of their accounts, to those who were murdered, to those who survived and those who attended. Even the names of the Indian Scouts who served at that time tragic time in 1890. Some of these stories you may have heard already and Green puts those and ones he found in old documents together in this one book, “All Guns Fired at One Time.” The stories to name a few, come from Long Bull, Help Them, Frog, Elk Saw Him, White Buffalo, trader Charles Jordan, Philip Wells, Iron Hail (Dewey Beard), Joseph Horn Cloud, Louis Mousseau John Shangreau, Standing Soldier, Frank Feathers, Alice Ghost Horse, John Ghost Bear, James Pipe on Head, Dog Chief, Nellie Knife, Blue Arm, Rough Feather, Owl King, George Running Hawk, Bertha Kills Close to Lodge, John Little Finger, Peter Stand, Blue Hair, White Lance, High Hawk, Alice Dog Arm, Weasel Bear, Annie Iron, Peter One Skunk and of course others who stories we have heard through the years of Eastman, Black Elk Horn Cloud and others. Testimonies where the government tried to glean why this happened, did the women have knifes and attack the soldiers so they were shot?, they ran together and that is why women and children were shot. Survivor testimonies emphasized the women’s knifes were taken from them before and the men ran one way and women and children another. Custer, the government wanted to know if survivor’s heard his name that horrific day. Of all accounts the one that stuck with me the most is Dewey Girl. She was nine years old and she fled with her mother Clover Woman who was injured from a shell that exploded on the frozen ground nearby. Dewey Girl fell into a ravine from the explosion but her mother laid on the ridge. She helped her mother down into the ravine and hid her in a hole in some pines and covered her with dried sticks and there they stayed. The horse soldiers came nearby killing the wounded. Dewey Girl later explored looking for people and something to eat and and she saw her relatives all about dead. She found their shawls and blankets so they survived the night with that warmth, and she fed her mother dried rosebuds. When she went out again, she saw a man coming, pulling a thin travois, weeping as he examined the bodies. It was her father Little Bird. Such joy to see him. They loaded her mother and left to safety. I enjoy reading books that are views from our side.

https://prairieedge.com/all-products/book-all-guns-fired-at-once-native-voices-of-wounded-knee-1890/