Category Archives: Jim Fergus

Title: The Vengeance of Mothers by Jim Fergus
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Historical, Fiction
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

The stunning sequel to the award-winning novel One Thousand White Women.

9 March 1876

My name is Meggie Kelly and I take up this pencil with my twin sister, Susie. We have nothing left, less than nothing. The village of our People has been destroyed, all our possessions burned, our friends butchered by the soldiers, our baby daughters gone, frozen to death on an ungodly trek across these rocky mountains. Empty of human feeling, half-dead ourselves, all that remains of us intact are hearts turned to stone. We curse the U.S. government, we curse the Army, we curse the savagery of mankind, white and Indian alike. We curse God in his heaven. Do not underestimate the power of a mother’s vengeance…

So begins the Journal of Margaret Kelly, a woman who participated in the U.S. government’s “Brides for Indians” program in 1873, a program whose conceit was that the way to peace between the United States and the Cheyenne Nation was for One Thousand White Woman to be given as brides in exchange for three hundred horses. These “brides” were mostly fallen women; women in prison, prostitutes, the occasional adventurer, or those incarcerated in asylums. No one expected this program to work. And the brides themselves thought of it simply as a chance at freedom. But many of them fell in love with their Cheyenne spouses and had children with them…and became Cheyenne themselves.

The Vengeance of Mothers explores what happens to the bonds between wives and husbands, children and mothers, when society sees them as “unspeakable.” What does it mean to be white, to be Cheyenne, and how far will these women go to avenge the ones they love? With vivid detail and keen emotional depth, Jim Fergus brings to light a time and place in American history and fills it with unforgettable characters who live and breathe with a passion we can relate to even today

Review:

In The Vengeance of Mothers, Jim Fergus whisks readers back to the 1870s when the US government was doing everything possible to eradicate the Native American people. Between the Black Hills gold rush, ranchers and white settlers, eliminating the People is a high priority as the Army viciously strikes their camps, the government reneges on deals made through peace treaties and Indian tribes are forced onto government reservations.  In an effort to assimilate Native Americans into the white way of life, a deal is struck with the Cheyenne Nation and white women, many of whom are from prisons and mental asylums, are sent to marry the braves. Although this newest release is a sequel which picks up One Thousand White Women (which I HIGHLY recommend) ends, it can be read as a standalone.

Written in diary format, the story alternates back and forth between the perspectives of original brides Margaret “Meggie” Kelly and her sister Susan “Susie” and newcomer Molly McGill. Meggie and Susie have survived the horrific massacre which left their husbands and many of their fellow brides dead. As they fled for safety, they suffered horrific personal losses and they have vowed to take revenge on the soldiers who are indiscriminately and viciously attacking the various tribes’ villages. Molly and her fellow brides’ train has been attacked by the Cheyenne but they decide they still want to follow through with the plan to marry into their tribe.  Still grieving from recent events, Meggie and Susie become the other women’s reluctant guides as they, along with the surviving Cheyenne warriors, set out to reunite with the rest of their tribe.

Despite a bit of a slow start, The Vengeance of Mothers is an engrossing peek into the hardships and life and death battles these women and the Native Americans endured as they government continued their efforts to wipe out the indigenous people. This historically accurate and impeccably researched novel has an incredibly realistic and compelling storyline that is heartrending. There is a bit of a mystical feel to the present day aspects of the plot and  Jim Fergus brings the story to an intriguing, but somewhat  ambiguous, conclusion. Both The Vengeance of Mothers and its predecessor, One Thousand White Women, are incredibly well-written novels that bring the appalling plight of the Native American tribes vividly to life.  I absolutely loved and highly recommend both of these incredible novels.