One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
Based on an actual historical event but told through fictional diaries, this is the story of May Dodd―a remarkable woman who, in 1875, travels through the American West to marry the chief of the Cheyenne Nation.
One Thousand White Women begins with May Dodd’s journey into an unknown world. Having been committed to an insane asylum by her blue-blood family for the crime of loving a man beneath her station, May finds that her only hope for freedom and redemption is to participate in a secret government program whereby women from “civilized” society become the brides of Cheyenne warriors. What follows is a series of breathtaking adventures―May’s brief, passionate romance with the gallant young army captain John Bourke; her marriage to the great chief Little Wolf; and her conflict of being caught between loving two men and living two completely different lives
I have zero memory of which of my friends recommended this read to me a super duper long time ago….but I do remember it was SEVERAL people who RAVED about it.
I also remember reading the summary and side eyeing it…I realllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllyy dislike men writing from a women’s perspective…ANDI had a feeling there would be all kinds of inaccuracies regarding Native Americans too.
The author is a WHITE MALE, yall.
Yes, he cites sources at the end of his book that he used to write this story….
But I am sorry, yall.
All the research in the damn WORLD can not equal to lived experience nor can it take away the power dynamics that are at play here in regards to race and gender and a WHITE ASS MAN being the author of this book.
So I came across this book in a super clearance bin at a used book store, continued to side eye it, but thought maybe I was being dramatic (that HARDLY ever happens🤣) and all my friends WERE right and it IS good and I should give it a go….so I paid less than a dollar for it and went on my way.
It then sat on my shelf for the past 3 years or so 🤣
You can tell I was VERY pumped to read this from the get go, right?
And I bet most of you can guess what my opinion on this one is gonna be.
😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑
I grabbed this from my shelf recently for no other reason except I am trying to read all the books that have collected there over the years…and this one had been sitting for a BIT.
Imma tell you that I wish I could get my less than a dollar back that I spent on this one, yall.
My side eye reasons were TOTALLY and COMPLETELY on point.
A male author describing how a woman feels while pregnant…or during childbirth…or during SEX…or being silenced by society…got under my DAMN SKIN.
No sir, you did NOT understand the assignment… nor can you ever.
And the same can be said for a white man to write about Native American cultures or customs or struggles or society.
IDGAF how long this man has lived in the American West or how many books he read in his research (which BTW most of the nonfiction resources he cited using were ALSO written by white authors)…he does NOT nor CAN NOT understand.
The whole time I was reading I was wondering how much insight he got from Cheyenne people DIRECTLY?
In the author’s note at the very beginning of the book, Jim Fergus says “…while a genuine attempt was made to render the Cheyenne language as accurately as possible, certain misspellings and misuses inevitably occur in this book. For these errors, the author offers sincere apologies to the Cheyenne people.”
BRUH.
Maybe if you would’ve had some literary consultants that WERE ACTUAL CHEYENNE PEOPLE they could have helped you out IMMENSELY with that.
Maybe you could have paid Cheyenne people actual MONEY to review and edit your book so you could write ACCURATE FACTS about their culture and history.
Maybe have a coauthor that is Cheyenne….and for that matter a Cheyenne WOMAN and also a white woman.
Or better yet?
Stay in your lane, man.
Why do us white people SUCK SO BADLY at that?!?
I browsed over the Internet to see if I could find any Native American reviews on this book….and I could not find ONE. (not that there AREN’T any in existence but I sure couldn’t find them)
Know what I saw plenty of though?
White people writing reviews…and LOVING this book.
Of course we did.
Are there interesting story lines and characters? I mean…I guess so 🤷♀️
But I could not get past all the other enraging things.
BLEH.
I could NOT handle all the ways May Dodd and her ladies and the white troops described the Cheyenne people: “savages”, “uncivilized”, “brutes”.
Did this encapsulate many white Americans views during this time period of Native American people?
Yes, unfortunately it did.
And I guess the author did at SOME points try to get across real history and painted a realistic picture of Native land being stolen by the American government as well as the horrific violence brought upon them as well.
I will give him that.
But STILL.
I don’t think a white man needs to be writing from a women’s perspective OR like he knows the ins and outs of an entire people group he is in NO WAY a part of.
There are SO SO SO MANY things he gets DEAD ASS WRONG.
So many.
Plus there is this whole giant ass scene where a visiting tribe brings in a bunch of whiskey….and it turns into a horror filled night full of all these Native men not being able to control themselves in the SLIGHTEST and doing AWFUL “animal like” things.
All that does is just reinforce stereotypes and further misunderstandings and misinformation.
LOTS of that happening in this story over and over.
So..I COULD keep going on and on about the bullshit power dynamics of white men thinking they can write about anything and everything they want as long as they have the “research”, and argue that it’s a “fictional account” of history, and blah blah blah.
But I won’t.
Yall know by this point in my review how I felt about this one.
Apparently it is book 1 of a series of 3…but I ain’t going any farther with this story, yall.
If I want to hear a story—even a fictional one—about Native people, I’ll look to Native authors.
Same for women.
Whoever it was in my life that recommended this to me…sorry, I do not agree with your sentiments on this one.
**Also….if you are wondering if I feel the same way about FEMALE authors writing from a MALE perspective…. or Native people writing from a White perspective…my answer is “it depends”. Because the whole hierarchy of power and oppression is reversed in that aspect and it is NOT THE SAME in my brain most of the time. Don’t worry…I’m sure I’ll address this again PLENTY of times in future reviews…*