Book Review: A Hundred in the Hand: A Novel by Joseph M. Marshall III

When the English arrived on the shores of America, the power they received came at the expense of the original inhabitants of the land, the Redskins. Many books have been compiled over the years about the red Indians and the “white-skinned people” who so rudely took their land from them, but the problem with these books is the fact that everyone who wrote them belonged to this last category. So a touch of bias towards the latter will creep in by giving us a one-sided story of the events that unfolded.

One Hundred in Hand written by Joseph gives us a chance to hear the voice from the other side. Being the Lakota Sioux himself, this book is fiction but contains the roots and history of his people. This story, centered on the book’s title war “Hundred in the Hand” (also known as The Fetterman Massacre of 1866) is told from the point of view of the Lakota Sioux. It is certainly a dramatic departure from the usual interpretation of written American history.

The author incorporates references to Lakota culture, both spiritual and social, as well as dozens of everyday examples of military, hunting, and tribal relationships. One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is the characters in it, who are presented in a way that is easy to associate. The protagonists of the story go through all the phases that anyone would go through if they were in very tough situations, their people fall in love, get hurt in battle and inevitably die.

I found the book very educational and although it is fiction, it was in some ways more enlightening than non-fiction stories on the same subject of the wars between the redskins and their conquerors. One Hundred in the Hand is a pretty good read and opens up the previously unheard suppressed voices a bit.