Imagine the reaction in 1854 when a Cheyenne Chief, at a peace conference in Fort Laramie, suggested the U.S. Army give the tribe “1000 white women” to marry the warriors.
Since children in the Cheyenne culture go with their mother’s line, the chief—already seeing the writing on the wall that the White “invaders” were not likely to share—thought this was a great way to “assimilate,” since all the children of the unions would be considered to be white by his people.
Of course, it never happened, except in the imagination of writer Jim Fergus, whose 1998 book, One Thousand White Women, the Journals of May Dodd fantasized what could have happened if the women had come. The book not only was well received here, but spent 57 weeks on France’s best seller list.
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