Books: ONE THOUSAND WHITE WOMEN - The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

Title: One Thousand White Women : The Journals of May Dodd
Author: Jim Fergus
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2011

This book is a fictional book that is so well-researched and written that I had to keep checking whether it was in fact not based on actual records. It is about the the exchange of one thousand white women as brides for Native American men by the American government in the 1800s, in the years immediately prior to the gold rush.

In a bid by white settlers to acquire Native American land, the "Brides for Indians Program" was meant to foster relations between the two people, with the American government hoping to ultimately renege on earlier land treaties. The exchange program was not expected to be a success as the Native Americans unwittingly got a  mixed bag of women that were either former convicts or formerly institutionalised, and those that simply saw volunteering into the program as a way to escape from their lives.

The story is told from the perspective of May Todd, a perfectly sane woman from a well-to-do family who was institutionalised in a mental asylum by her family because she went against her family's wishes and had two children out of wedlock, with a man deemed to be beneath her station in life. She volunteers to the program when she hears of it, and is assisted by a nurse at the asylum- who herself volunteers into the program. Her entry into the program secures her release from the asylum. She narrates the experiences and the varied characters with her in the program in a matter-of-fact manner, with great humour and the voice of one who had nothing to lose.

Jim Fergus does an incredible job at the character development of the women in the program while balancing the narrative effectively to remain strictly May Todd's story. The story is about the will of the women in the program to escape their pasts and survive in their harsh new world. The emptiness and vastness of the places they find themselves on their way to meeting their new husbands, the safety of family of their new lives, and violence that ensues in this wild country is well told. It is a story of survival, with surprising and unexpected love stories  - although it is not the stuff of Harlequin Romance novels. The book reminded me again how much I enjoy reading historical fiction.

Spoiler: The ending was unexpectedly violent, and an absolute tear-jerker.