![]() Should we fail to become with child, we are required to remain with our husbands for two full years, after which time we are free to do as we wish.or, at least, so say the authorities." All the women who sign up for the Brides for Indians program do so voluntarily, some to escape poverty, others to win freedom from jail, and still others, like May, to win release from a lunatic asylum. She writes in her journal, ".we are contractually obligated to bear but one child with our Indian husbands, after which time we are free to go, or stay as we choose. May Dodd is in the first group of white women to marry and live among the Cheyenne. Grant's fictional approval was based on the hopes that the women would convince the Cheyenne to move to reservations so that white settlers could peacefully live upon land formerly inhabited by the Native Americans and exploit the land for its resources. ![]() Grant rejected this proposition, but Jim Fergus' novel, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, follows what would have happened if Grant's response had been in the affirmative. Little Wolf hoped that the white women would help his people assimilate to the white man's way of life before there were no more buffalo to hunt. ![]() ![]() In 1854, President Ulysses Grant attended a Native American peace conference during which a Cheyenne chief named Little Wolf offered to trade 1,000 of his horses for 1,000 white brides for his tribesmen. One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd ![]()
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