Come, Blackrobe: De Smet and the Indian Tragedy

xv, 448 pp. Father Killoren gives in this book a picture of the plight of the Native American peoples in the U.S., and of the work among them of Jesuit missionary Pierre Jean DeSmet. Beginning with the founding of the United States and focusing on the period of DeSmet's active missionary life (1823-73), Fr. Killoren examines the government's unfulfilled treaty obligations, the destruction of Indian land, and the subsequent devastation brought about by disease and famine. It is a story filled with immense tragedy and irony, and one wherein the government seemed to view either extermination or complete assimilation as the only policy options.