The Indians Won

by Martin Cruz Smith

Book Overview

First published in 1970 and long out of print, The Indians Won is a stunning work of speculative fiction that imagines that, following the defeat of Custer and Benteen at the Little Bighorn in 1876, the many Indigenous tribes of America formed an alliance to sweep the whites out of the center of the country and form a new nation, bounded on both coasts by the United States. One hundred years later the two nations, having taken very different paths...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 082636604X
• ISBN13: 9780826366047
• Release Date: March 2024
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A novel both believable and inspirational

I almost didn't read this book because I thought that the premise was too unbelievable. I thought that any story of the American Indian tribes building a self-sustaining independent nation after the Battle of the Little Big Horn must be laughingly unrealistic and simplistic. I could not have been more wrong. This story is almost too believable and packed with plausible, realistic detail. It could have worked. Hell, you want it to have worked for they build a better sort of nation. What if the Lakota and Cheyenne (Tsistsitas) had not broken up into traditional hunting bands that winter? What if a shadowy group of European investors who were resentful of rising U.S. influence had supplied weapons, canned meat, and blankets to keep them together? After all, the logistical mechanism already existed- the Service Canadien (Metis.) There were huge numbers of Winchester model '73's available on the world market (as demonstrated by their use in Turkey, India, and China.) Then what if an appeal had gone out to all the tribes- North, South, East, and West? It is pointed out that the tribes had come together before under Metacomet, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Blackhawk, Osceola... What if Wovoka had come forward with his great vision at the same time. Finally, what if the Mormon Legion had signed on? Each chapter is split between happenings after 1876 that lead to the founding of an Indian nation on the Great Plains, and the culmination of that nation's dealings with the United States government in 1970. I'm sure that back then when the book was written it was considered absurd that a smaller nation could develop its own fission weapons- but in 2006 this has been proven all too plausible.

Indians won by Cruz

I have not read this book for years, but while attemtping to find a book to have high school students read I thought of this one. It is an amazing stretch in alternative history, where a single event can be changed and the resultant reflection on society mapped. Briefly, after Custer was defeated at Little Big Horn, the Indian tribes stayed together to defeat General Crook and develop an Indian nation in the middle of the present US. This book is excellent for the manner in which it presents logical progressions and conclusions. Besides, the book is a very good read.