The story of Creek Mary's blood opens in 1905 at a White House luncheon hosted by Teddy Roosevelt in honor of Mary Dane, "a young Indian woman from Montana, the first of her race and the first of her sex to graduate from Columbia Medical College." A young reporter, who has been sent by his newspaper to cover the event, becomes fascinated with the story of Creek Mary and her descendants. He travels to Montana at the invitation of Dane, Creek Mary's grandson, to learn of the remarkable events which encompass five generations of Indian/American history, from pre-Revolutionary days, to the Little Big Horn, to Wounded Knee, and into the twentieth century. Dee Brown skillfully utilizes the flashback technique as Dane narrates his tale to the sympathetic reporter, now in the past and then in the present, blending the two into a well-developed narrative.

The dominant themes of...