Savage Conversations by LeAnne Howe is a historical and psychological dive into the mind of former first lady Mary Lincoln. Turns out she ended her life in an insane asylum, the Bellevue Place Sanitarium, for “nervous derangement and fever in her head.” In particular, she reported repeated visitations by an Indian who “[slit her] eyelids and [sewed] them open, always removing the wires by dawn’s first light.” The apparition of an Indian figure is significant, because years earlier in 1862, Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution of thirty-eight Dakota martyrs for participating in the Dakota War against white settlers “who had first stolen their lands, then their rations, and raped their women.” As a Choctaw writer, Howe immediately connected the dots between Mary’s hallucinations and her husband’s war crimes. This explosive inspiration led Howe to pen a slick, acerbic 104 page—er—play? poetry collection?
Formally, the text is written like a play—in scenes, that is, complete with characters and stage directions. The micro-scenes come in rapid fire succession, rarely lasting more than two pages, sometimes not lasting more than one line. There are three characters: Mary Todd Lincoln, the Savage Indian, and The Rope. Throughout the play, the audience watches Mary poetically bemoan her situation, hiss about her son’s betrayal (he testified against her), weep for her husband, and contemplate her isolation. The Savage Indian, the ghost of one of the thirty-eight men martyred that fateful day, retorts, scalping Mary, contemplating the condition of his people, and singing songs of healing. In that fraught and sparking tension between Mary and the Savage Indian, one finds heartbreaking passages about loneliness, incisive commentary on contemporary police brutality, and more.
Howe did a marvelous job conceptually and formally executing this incendiary material. Her work makes visible the presence, indeed even the prominence, of Native Americans through traditionally white-washed versions of history. Abraham Lincoln is celebrated for freeing enslaved African-Americans, but his massacre of the Dakota is rarely noted in traditional educational settings. In Savage Conversations, Howe shines light on this suppressed moment in history, indicting Abraham Lincoln through his wife’s tormented conscience.
I recommend this book to people interested in drama, poetry, form, American history, Native American literature, and ethnic studies.