One thousand white women essay

It passed from Washington D.C. to the northern Great Plains and was followed by a number of others from areas including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. Fergus focuses mainly on one woman, May Dodd, who left the Lake Forest Lunatic Asylum outside of Chicago. At twenty-five years old, she was near the average volunteer age for the BFI.

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd is a 1998 historical novel by Jim Fergus. Stretching from the year 1874 onwards, its title refers to a series of political stirrings caused by the Cheyenne Sweet Medicine Tribe when they offered a thousand horses in trade for one thousand white women.

Further, it describes the Grant administration’s covert attempt to create a project called “Brides for Indians,” officially referred to as the “BFI.” The government rounded up a large number of women from mental asylums and prisons to experiment with the idea of creating brides for the Cheyenne Sweet Medicine Tribe.