I Love Brave Women

I just finished a book that I really enjoyed. It had been recommended by a friend a long time ago, but I didn't make the effort to find it. Just recently, another friend gave me a brand-new copy, and I'm so glad that she did. The book is ONE THOUSAND WHITE WOMEN  by Jim Fergus, 1998. Although it is fictitious, it seems so real that you have to keep reminding yourself that it didn't really happen. In it, Fergus starts with the truth that in 1854, a Cheyenne chieftain requested that the whites send 1,000 women to live with their tribes as a way of joining the races and the eventual end of war between the two peoples. The offer was considered outrageous and was instantly refused. In this book, the offer was quietly accepted and the first installment of women was sent on its way. These women had been collected from insane asylums, jails, and other places where they would be unlikely to be missed. The story is told in the journals of May Dodd, one of the first (and only) group. It's a wonderful story and shouldn't be missed.