One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus

In 1854 at a peace conference at Fort Laramie, a prominent Northern Cheyenne chief requested of the U.S. Army authorities the gift of one thousand white women as brides for his young warriors. This seemed to the Cheyennes to be the perfect means of assimilation into white man’s world. This did not go over well with the white authorities.

From this historical event was born the idea for this novel. In actuality the women did not go, this novel is a fictional account of what may have happened if they had.

The book is written as if it is the journal and letters ‘home’ of one of the women, the writer has captured the voice of the woman and stays true to it throughout the book. It has a good storyline, he even writes a convincing ending to the account, in how it ended up in his hands and was preserved through the years. It moved along at a good pace, slow enough to give a feeling for the women’s new life and not dragging along, getting bogged down in details. There are some violent scenes that may be disturbing to some readers, I didn’t feel these were either too graphic or unnecessary. In all I thought this was a very entertaining well written book.

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