#BookReview of #ToSaveTheMan by John Sayles

‘In the vein of Never Let Me Go and Killers of the Flower Moon, one of America’s greatest storytellers sheds light on an American tragedy: the Wounded Knee Massacre, and the ‘cultural genocide’ experienced by the Native American children at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School . . .’
– To Save The Man (Publisher Quote)

My apologies to John Sayles and to Melville House. This review was supposed to be live on January 29th as part of the blog tour but, due to personal circumstances, I was unable to publish it in time.

[ About To Save The Man ]

In September of 1890, the academic year begins at the Carlisle School, a military-style boarding school for Indians in Pennsylvania, founded and run by Captain Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt considers himself a champion of Native Americans. His motto, “To save the man, we must kill the Indian,” is severely enforced in both classroom and dormitory: Speak only English, forget your own language and customs, learn to be white.

As the young students navigate surviving the school, they begin to hear rumors of a “ghost dance” amongst the tribes of the west—a ceremonial dance aimed at restoring the Native People to power, and running the invaders off their land. As the hope and promise of the ghost dance sweeps across the Great Plains, cynical newspapers seize upon the story to whip up panic among local whites. The US government responds by deploying troops onto lands that had been granted to the Indians. It is an act that seems certain to end in slaughter.

As news of these developments reaches Carlisle, each student, no matter what their tribe, must make a choice: to follow the white man’s path, or be true to their own way of life . . .

[ My Review ]

To Save The Man by John Sayles published January 21st with Melville House with Booklist Magazine describing it as ‘a virtuosic performance by a gifted storyteller.’ I had no prior knowledge of any of the history that John Sayers concentrates on in this novel so I was appalled by what I read.

In 1879 the Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened its doors in Pennsylvania as the first off-reservation facility of its kind. Under the tutelage of Captain Richard Henry Pratt, its objective was to train Indian children to become more white in their culture, their appearances and their language. Pratt truly believed that in order to fulfil his objective he needed to kill off the Indian culture with his motto “To save the man, we must kill the Indian”. The Carlisle School was in fact a conversion camp where young native Indians, both male and female, were, in many cases, forcibly taken from their homes and stripped of all their heritage from their hair, to their clothes and their words. This barbaric treatment was justified as necessary in order to assimilate them into the culture of the more superior white man.

As the native American population dwindled, John Sayles explores one particular period of life at the Carlisle School in September 1890. A new batch of students have arrived, some more capable than others. Through their eyes we see how they are gradually stripped of all that they know and inserted into a military style of life, with strict orders attached to every move they make. The confusion and the pure cruelty of what is inflicted on them is shocking. These young people love their culture and their way of life and the tragedy of these schools is that many students found it very challenging to return home after. They had been irreversibly changed and no longer belonged alongside their more traditional family members. The insights into their minds and how they each struggled to comprehend what was happening was reprehensible to read. The reality of their situation must have been so very frightening for them as they were forced to live in this alien world. But, at the same time there, was a movement gaining momentum, with rumours of ‘ghost dances’ on the Plains.

These dances were a revolt that grew from the belief that ‘the spirits of the dead would be raised, the buffalo would return, and European settlers would be driven away. A dance was the central focus of the ritual.’ – Oxford Reference. As the rumours reached Carlisle School, the students are faced with decisions – do they return home or do they continue this path of assimilation for a supposed better future? The American government did their best to quash these ‘ghost dances’ using force when deemed necessary but in December of 1890 on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, Chief Sitting Bull was killed by the US Cavalry. Many Lakota Indians fled that reservation and made their way to the Pine Ridge Reservation where, following a tense situation between the Native Americans and the US army, bullets were fired into a crowd. Killing hundreds of native men, women and children, this battle became known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.

To Save The Man is not an easy read but it is an important one. Using fiction wrapped around facts John Sayles takes the reader on an extraordinary journey deep into a reprehensible period of American history. The historical references are well-informed and it is very obvious the level of research that was covered in order to bring the different strands of the novel together. The superiority of one race, and their belief that their way is the only way is still, unfortunately, very relevant in our world today as ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ continues. A challenging read but a momentous one, To Save The Man is a complex and well-considered novel, a fascinating and potent book.

Thank you to Melville House for a copy of To Save The Man in exchange for my honest review.

[ Bio ]

John Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for Passion Fish (1992) and Lone Star (1996). He has written seven novels, including Yellow Earth (2020), A Moment in the Sun (2011) and Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade’s Journey (2023). He lives in Connecticut.