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Before Howard Zinn and his "people's history...", Brown composed this masterpiece of truth telling. Far from a vague account of noble savages, this is a telling of what white supremacy and manifest destiny cost the Native tribes here. It is fraught with a cruel, straight forward redundancy about the making of these United States. The West was not won but stolen--with massacres, forced marches, broken treaties, outright lies, unceasing dehumanization, determined injustice, and the deliberate dissolution of many indigenous civilizations. The brokenness of the reservation, generally, and sad plight of many descendants who remain is not at all mysterious. This book is not a page turner, though it is interesting. Honestly, it's often difficult to read the accounts of treachery upon treachery. Yet, it is as important as anything I've read about the fallout of European colonialism, capitalism before humanity, and the making of this nation. The accounts are straightforward and never maudlin, yet I cannot imagine reading it carefully without sorrow or finishing it without a more thoughtful, critical view of US history. Bitter medicine.