The Removes is a fictional account of the lives of Americans – immigrant and indigenous – in the American West during and after the Civil War. While the story follows General Custer and his wife, Libbie, through Custer’s military career, from the time he meets Libbie as a heroic Union general to his death at the Battle of Little Big Horn, the most difficult and interesting narrative is the one that follows the fictional Annie Cummins. As a young girl, Native Americans kill her family and take her captive. Through uncommon grit, she survives, and the story follows her torturous journey as the tribe that takes her captive moves, as it has always done, in pursuit of buffalo, but also to outrun the invaders on their land who seek to resettle them in reservations, including Custer.
While the Native Americans of Soli’s fictional work are often brutal to Annie and other captives, the white men in the story are no better, as U.S. Army soldiers murder Native children, rape Native women, and more broadly, seek to destroy an entire civilization.
Soli uses real-life events, quotations, and even photographs of Custer and his wife throughout the story, but she makes clear that The Removes is fiction, as is the life of Annie Cummins (though based on the stories of other women taken captive during that period). If you’re looking for a story to make you feel warm and fuzzy, this is not it. If you want compelling historical fiction that gives a clear-eyed view of the ravages of war and colonialism, I can’t recommend The Removes highly enough.
April 29, 2020