erence, however, where one opens the record of the history of the Indians; every page and every year has its dark stain." She calls on all branches of government, no matter how difficult the process or how long over due, to right their wrongs. Jackson outlines four changes, the cessation of cheating, robbing, and breaking promises, along with the end of refusing to protect Native American property rights under American law, that she believes are at least a good start to make up for all of the harm that the United States government caused. Background Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor in an attempt to change government ideas/policy toward Native Americans at a time when effects of the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act (making the entire Native American population wards of the nation) had begun to draw the attention of the public. Jackson attended a meeting in Boston in 1879 at which Standing Bear, a Ponca, told how the federal government forcibly removed his tribe from its ancestral homeland in the wake of the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation. After meeting Standing Bear, she conducted research at the Astor Library in New York and was shocked by the story of government mistreatment that she found. She wrote in a letter, "I shall be found with 'Indians' engraved on my brain when I am dead.—A fire has been kindled within me which will never go out." She collected information from a number of sources that shaped her well-rounded approach to understanding the experience of Native Americans and their relationship with the United States. At the start of the book, she provides an appendix of the reports and accounts that she relied on including records of prices that white men paid for scalps (of Native Americans) and personal testimonials of grievances that Sioux had experienced. Distribution The book was originally published in 1881 and Jackson personally sent a copy of her book to every member of Congress, at her own expense. She hoped to awaken the conscience of the American people, and their representatives, to the flagrant wrongs that had be
