One Thousand White Women is the story of May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women who, under the auspices of the U. S. government, travel to the western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among the Cheyenne Indians. The covert and controversial "Brides for Indians" program, launched by the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, is intended to help assimilate the Indians into the white man's world.