Review: "The Vengeance of Mothers" by Jim Fergus

When you turned the final pages of One Thousand White Women, May Dodd was dead, as were most of the white women who were in the Brides for Indians program. Little Wolf was leading the few women who were left and his bedraggled band of followers through the cold and snow to the village of Crazy Horse. It appeared that the people who were not killed in the massacre would freeze to death. This is the survivors‘ stories and how they coped with their devastating losses. It encompasses not only the white women but also the Indians that were not killed. There are also new characters introduced that fill the place of the missing characters and round out the tale.

The author brings this saga to life by telling it in the first person, predominantly by the two main characters. This is accomplished by hearing the story in their own words from their diary entries. An event is recounted by first one and then the other, each bringing a different aspect to the telling. You are teased with a tiny excerpt of each entry at the beginning of each chapter. In this way, the author keeps you enthralled, wanting to keep reading until the last page.

This book is purely fiction, set in the 1870’s during the Indian wars and is meant to be read for enjoyment and I found it as entertaining as the previous one. The women’s stories are heartrending but also filled with hope with a few life lessons thrown in for good measure. This can be enjoyed by pre-teens to adults and I highly recommend it for the wonderful tale that it is.