Synopses & Reviews
On New Year's Day in 1870, ten-year-old Adolph Korn was kidnapped by an Apache raiding party. Traded to Comaches, he thrived in the rough, nomadic existence, quickly becoming one of the tribe's fiercest warriors. Forcibly returned to his parents after three years, Korn never adjusted to life in white society. He spent his last years in a cave, all but forgotten by his family.
That is, until Scott Zesch stumbled over his own great-great-great uncle's grave. Determined to understand how such a "good boy" could have become Indianized so completely, Zesch travels across the west, digging through archives, speaking with Comanche elders, and tracking eight other child captives from the region with hauntingly similar experiences. With a historians rigor and a novelists eye, Zesch paints a vivid portrait of life on the Texas frontier, offering a rare account of captivity. Scott Zesch grew up on a ranch in Mason County, Texas, and graduated from Texas A&M University and Harvard Law School. He is also the author of a novel, Alamo Heights, and a past recipient of the Western History Association's Ray Allen Billington Award. He divides his time between New York City and Art, Texas. Winner of the TCU-Texas Book Award
On New Year's Day in 1870, ten-year-old Adolph Korn's life as the son of a poor German-speaking farmer ended, and his life as a Comanche began. On that day, an Indian raiding party kidnapped the boy from his neighbor's pasture in the Texas Hill Country. With little hope of finding him alive and no resourcesmaterial or politicalhis loved ones had to eventually give him up for dead.
However, Adolph survived his capture, and soon thrived amid the rough, nomadic life of the Plains Indians. Within a year, Korn had become one of the Comanche's fiercest warriors. For nearly three years, he fought with his fellow Comanches against the encroaching white settlers, buffalo hunters, and U.S. soldiers who threatened their survival. But Korn was forcibly returned to his parents when the army "captured" him for a second timeafter which, unsurprisingly, Korn held fast to his Native American ways and never found a place in white society. He spent his last years living alone in a cave, an eccentric oddity forgotten by his family.
That is, until Scott Zescha distant descendant of Korn'sstumbled over his relative's barely marked grave in a neglected corner of an old cemetery in Mason, Texas. Determined to know more about his ancestorand to understand how a timid farm boy like Adolph could have become so thoroughly 'Indianized' in such a short timeZesch tracked down surviving relatives, dug for primary sources in archives across the West, talked with Comanche elders, and expanded his search to include other child captives from the region, who also became some of the most Indianized whites in history.
Set against a rich historical backdrop of intense political wrangling and bloody confrontations between the U.S. government and Native Americans, The Captured is a vital work of Western historical scholarship as well as a true account of what settlers considered a 'fate worse than death'an important study that details the dramatic lives of Adolph Korn and eight other children abducted by Comanches and Apaches in the Texas Hill Country. Winner of the TCU-Texas Book Award
"A fascinating reassessment of the not-uncommon phenomenon of white Indians in nineteenth-century Texas."Mike Shea, Texas Monthly "A fascinating reassessment of the not-uncommon phenomenon of white Indians in nineteenth-century Texas."Mike Shea, Texas Monthly
"Compelling . . . With The Captured, Zesch is able to piece together the most complete picture yet of what it was like to be taken from the white world of farming, discipline, and hard work into the roaming, brutal-yet-carefree life of the Southern Plains Indians . . . Thanks to Zesch's meticulous research and his novelist's knack for storytelling, we are able to get a better picture of the plight of 'white Indians.'"Steve Bennett, San Antonio Express-News
"Working from a century's remove, [Zesch] uses archival resources, historical perspective, and stylistic flair to tell stories that are at once engaging and edifying. Reading Zesch's account . . . pinned me to my recliner as surely as a metal-bladed Comanche arrow."Mike Cox, Austin American-Statesman
"This isn't about good guys and bad guys but rather the clash of two cultures whose value systems were completely at odds . . . Zesch has told their stories well in this very readable book."Allen C. Williams, Wichita Falls Times Record News
"A record of this country's history and of the many white children whom Indian tribes took home with them in the Texas Hill Country and on other frontiers. For me, the book also is evocative of other larger issuesassimilation and culture, and human interaction and environment."Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A fine new book . . . a humbling read. Zesch catches up with his great-great-great-uncle Adolph Korn's Indians in the same moment as we 1960s [Peace Corps] Volunteers found Africa: a colonized, rapidly westernizing culture slowly falling to pieces in, as anthropologists coldly define it, a 'cultural interpenetration zone.' But because he is a thorough and scholarly researcher, Zesch also enteredas far as now possible from this removeAdolph's cultural and psychological mazeway: an individual's own complex mental image of nature, society, culture, personality, and body image."Tom Herbert, Peace Corps Writers
"Well-researched and wonderfully written . . . Zesch is a rarity: a good historian who is also a good storyteller."Dan Rather
"A stirring account . . . The captivity narrative is one of the oldest of American literary genres, and Scott Zesch breathes new life into the form in The Captured."Don Graham, author of Kings of Texas
"Excellent . . . The Captured vividly tells it like it was without yielding to myth or political correctness."Elmer Kelton, author of The Way of the Coyote
"On New Year's Day, 1870, Adolph Korn, the author's ancestor and son of German immigrants, was captured by three Apaches near his family's cabin in central Texas. Adolph was traded to a band of Quahada Comanches, with whom he lived until November 1872, when the Comanches traded their captives for those held by the U.S. Army. Adolph was irrevocably changed. Considering himself Indian, he lived in a cave, and died alone in 1900. The author's search into Korn's sad life led him to the similar stories of eight other children captured in Texas between 1865 and 1871. Drawing on his tenacious research and interviews with the captives' descendants, Zesch compiles a gripping account of the lives of these children as they lived and traveled with their Indian captors. He delves into the reasons for their 'Indianization,' which for most of them lasted the rest of their lives, and discusses why they couldn't adjust to white society. A fascinating, meticulously documented chronicle of the often-painful confrontations between whites and Indians during the final years of Indian Territory."Booklist
"Inspired by nearly forgotten family stories of a Ge
Synopsis
Winner of the TCU-Texas Book Award for Best Book on Texas
On New Year's Day in 1870, ten-year-old Adolph Korn was kidnapped by an Apache raiding party. Traded to Comaches, he thrived in the rough, nomadic existence, quickly becoming one of the tribe's fiercest warriors. Forcibly returned to his parents after three years, Korn never adjusted to life in white society. He spent his last years in a cave, all but forgotten by his family.
That is, until Scott Zesch stumbled over his own great-great-great uncle's grave. Determined to understand how such a good boy could have become Indianized so completely, Zesch travels across the west, digging through archives, speaking with Comanche elders, and tracking eight other child captives from the region with hauntingly similar experiences.
With a historian's rigor and a novelist's eye, Zesch's The Captured paints a vivid portrait of life on the Texas frontier, offering a rare account of captivity.
A carefully written, well-researched contribution to Western history -- and to a promising new genre: the anthropology of the stolen. - Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
On New Year's Day in 1870, ten-year-old Adolph Korn was kidnapped by an Apache raiding party. Traded to Comaches, he thrived in the rough, nomadic existence, quickly becoming one of the tribe's fiercest warriors. Forcibly returned to his parents after three years, Korn never adjusted to life in white society. He spent his last years in a cave, all but forgotten by his family.
That is, until Scott Zesch stumbled over his own great-great-great uncle's grave. Determined to understand how such a "good boy" could have become Indianized so completely, Zesch travels across the west, digging through archives, speaking with Comanche elders, and tracking eight other child captives from the region with hauntingly similar experiences. With a historians rigor and a novelists eye, Zesch paints a vivid portrait of life on the Texas frontier, offering a rare account of captivity.
About the Author
Scott Zesch grew up in Mason County, Texas and graduated from Texas A&M University and Harvard Law School. He is the author of the novel Alamo Heights, and he is the winner of the Western History Association's Ray Allen Billington Award. He divides his time between New York City and a ranch in Art, Texas (population 3).