Synopses & Reviews
This newest volume in Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments series offers an unforgettable portrait of the Nez Perce War of 1877, the last great Indian conflict in American history. It was, as Elliott West shows, a tale of courage and ingenuity, of desperate struggle and shattered hope, of short-sighted government action and a doomed flight to freedom.
To tell the story, West begins with the early history of the Nez Perce and their years of friendly relations with white settlers. In an initial treaty, the Nez Perce were promised a large part of their ancestral homeland, but the discovery of gold led to a stampede of settlement within the Nez Perce land. Numerous injustices at the hands of the US government combined with the settlers' invasion to provoke this most accomodating of tribes to war. West offers a riveting account of what came next: the harrowing flight of 800 Nez Perce, including many women, children and elderly, across 1500 miles of mountainous and difficult terrain. He gives a full reckoning of the campaigns and battles--and the unexpected turns, brilliant stratagems, and grand heroism that occurred along the way. And he brings to life the complex characters from both sides of the conflict, including cavalrymen, officers, politicians, and--at the center of it all--the Nez Perce themselves (the Nimiipuu, "true people"). The book sheds light on the war's legacy, including the near sainthood that was bestowed upon Chief Joseph, whose speech of surrender, "I will fight no more forever," became as celebrated as the Gettysburg Address.
Based on a rich cache of historical documents, from government and military records to contemporary interviews and newspaper reports, The Last Indian War offers a searing portrait of a moment when the American identity--who was and who was not a citizen--was being forged.
Review
"No one writes Western history better than Elliott West. Here he puts the Nez Perce story into the broad context of U.S. national integration while retaining its vivid specificity. A gripping account for both academic and general audiences."--Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
Review
"A distinguished scholar of American history makes a significant contribution to Oxford's excellent series Pivotal Moments in American History in this definitive analysis of the United States' 1877 war with the Nez Percé... The 1877 war, the Nez Percé's epic journey to reach the Canadian border, American conquest and Indian exile is the heart of the book, and West tells it brilliantly."--Publishers Weekly starred review
"Elliott West's The Last Indian War illustrates his leadership among western historians... this new volume exhibits West's superb talents as a thoughtful, analytical, and artistic historian at home in the West ... West's book is now the best account we have of the much-discussed Nez Perce War and the role of the Nez Perce leader Joseph in this conflict... But The Last Indian War is much more than another account of the Nez Perce War. If read carefully and thoughtfully, West's benchmark volume will force general and specialist readers to reconfigure American history of the mid-nineteenth century... In short, The Last Indian War is a major work of both revision and narration. Western as well as American historians will find West's volume of first importance in rethinking the mid-nineteenth century. Quite simply, West's premier book is worthy of all the accolades and major prizes it will garner."--Richard W. Etulain, Journal of American History
"Gripping...Skilled storytelling drives an astute examination of a sad, complicated episode."--Kirkus Reviews
"It is fascinating history, well-documented... West follows every step of that journey, stressing how the stark contrast between two cultures cultivated misunderstandings that festered into war. That theme becomes a drumbeat as he scrutinizes every detail of the Nez Perce war, flight, capture and exile."--Tacoma News Tribune
"This is an excellent study of the relations between whites and the Nez Perce tribe, with emphasis on the 1877 war."--True West magazine
"Based on extensive research in archival papers, government reports, and contemporary sources, this well-written book is an excellent place to start in understanding the Nez Perce War and is highly recommended for all libraries."--Library Journal
"Using historical documents, from government and military records to contemporary interviews and newspaper reports, 'The Last Indian War' offers a portrait of emerging American identity - when the idea of who was and who was not a citizen was being forged...Complex characters on both sides of the following battles are brought to life. The book sheds light on the war's legacy, including the near sainthood bestowed upon Chief Joseph."--Lewiston Tribune
"No one writes Western history better than Elliott West. Here he puts the Nez Perce story into the broad context of U.S. national integration while retaining its vivid specificity. A gripping account for both academic and general audiences."--Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
"In Elliott West's skilled hands, the plangent tale of Chief Joseph and the great hegira of his people comes to immediate life on the page." --Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder
"Powerful and elegant, informative and highly readable, Elliott West's The Last Indian War is one of the most distinguished works on its subject to appear in 30 years. Its core is a fascinating account of how some 800 Nez Perce outwitted the U.S. Army over a 1500-mile retreat. Indians and white army officers, soldiers, politicians and local settlers-all become flesh and blood, revealing not only West's profound understanding of Indian culture but his ability to put them within the context our national history as it was becoming a modern industrial nation."--Howard R. Lamar, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University
"With his extraordinary gifts for conveying the character of the people of the past and for untangling--but never over-simplifying--the most complex of stories, Elliott West uncovers the unifying patterns in the Civil War and the Indian Wars, the Reconstruction of the South and the incorporation of the West."--Patricia Nelson Limerick, Center of the American West, University of Colorado
"No one has ever told the story of the Nez Perce so compellingly and so movingly-and many have told it. Even more impressively, West makes this wry, tragic, and deeply humane volume a window onto the wider changes transforming the United States. His idea of a Greater Reconstruction provides a framework for future histories of the era."--Richard White, Professor of History, Stanford University
"In West's sweeping narrative, the destinies of Nez Perce warriors and American officers entwine as they struggle for mastery of some of the continent's choice land. In the hands of one of our greatest western historians, the last Indian war is no longer an isolated event on the edge of American history, but goes to the heart of the central question of just who was welcome in modern America, and under what terms."--Heather Cox Richardson, author of West From Appomattox
"The Nez Perces never wanted war and their history was embedded in the glorious and forbidding geography of the high country of Idaho and Montana for a millennia. Elliott West, one of the most versatile and distinguished historians of the American West, tells this riveting epic story of land, greed, race, and warfare. All whites are not villains and all Indians are not heroic in this saga; but the tragedy of the pursuit and destruction of Chief Joseph and his people by the relentless logic of war is rooted in a U.S. government policy of conquest and racial dominance that we must still reckon with today. This book will make readers weep and then enrich and haunt their imaginations forever."--David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
"Perceptive and poignant."--The Oregonian
Review
and#8220;The remarkable Dewey Beard was a man who seemed to live foreverand#8212;old enough to have fought at the Little Bighorn in 1876, its last survivor when he finally died in 1955. What the old-time Lakota were like, and what they lived through in those seventy years, is the subject of Philip Burnhamand#8217;s original, bracing, touching, surprising, and vigorously written book. Take note; this is something we have never seen before: a serious, and sometimes funny, and often dramatic, and always interesting account of a Lakota life after the buffalo were gone. Thatand#8217;s where the story usually stops. Burnham lets Beard tell us what happened next.and#8221;and#8212;Tom Powers, author of The Killing of Crazy Horse
Review
and#8220;By scouring the archives and conducting personal interviews, Philip Burnham has helped clarify the historical record, teasing out new information and dispelling lingering myths. Song of Dewey Beard is a thoroughly researched, well-written, and engaging book.and#8221;and#8212;Akim Reinhardt, author of Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the IRA to Wounded Knee
Review
and#8220;Diane Glancy inhabits a world of images that breathe life and voice for the voiceless men, women, and children. . . . No simple history lesson, this, as Glancy examines how language is both captor and savior, another means of imprisonment and also liberation.and#8221;and#8212;Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall
Review
and#8220;This book is mesmerizing and will stay with you for lifetimes.and#8221;and#8212;Jackie Old Coyote, Apsaalooke Nation, former director of education and outreach at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
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Review
and#8220;The survival of Indian people represents one of the most important subjects in American history. Glancy creates a multilayered narrative about the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho Indians, who became prisoners of the United States government during the late nineteenth century. She invites readers to contemplate the bleak realities and the difficult choices presented by historical circumstances.and#8221;and#8212;Brad Lookingbill, professor of history at Columbia College of Missouri
Review
andquot;Using a genuine relationship with Beardandrsquo;s relatives and intertwining their own personal stories into the narrative, Burnham underscores the legacy left them by this man who just lived life as best as he knew how.andquot;andmdash;Nancy S. Gillis, Nebraska History
Review
andquot;Glancy is not only an insightful historian but a gifted storyteller. The craft, creativity, and imagination with which she renders this amazing text powerfully draw the reader into the world of the Fort Marion prisoners. Few texts to date have portrayed their experiences with the upheavals of a changing world with such intimacy and humanism.andquot;andmdash;Steven Williams, American Studies
Synopsis
The great Native American warriors and their resistance to the U.S. government in the war against the Plains Indians is a well-known chapter in the story of the American West. In the aftermath of the great resistance, as the Indian nations recovered from war, many figures loomed heroic, yet their stories are mostly unknown. This long-overdue biography of Dewey Beard (ca. 1862and#8211;1955), a Lakota who witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn and survived the Wounded Knee Massacre, chronicles a remarkable life that can be traced through major historical events from the late nineteenth into the mid-twentieth century.
Beard was not only a witness to two major battles against the Lakota; he also traveled with William and#8220;Buffalo Billand#8221; Codyand#8217;s Wild West show, worked as a Hollywood Indian, and witnessed the grand transformation of the Black Hills into a tourism mecca. Beard spent most of his later life fighting to reclaim his homeland and acting as and#8220;old Dewey Beard,and#8221; a living relic of the and#8220;old Westand#8221; for the tourists.
With a keen eye for detail and a true storytellerand#8217;s talent, Philip Burnham presents the man behind the legend of Dewey Beard and shows how the life of the last survivor of Little Bighorn provides a glimpse into the survival of Indigenous America.
Synopsis
At the end of the Southern Plains Indian wars in 1875, the War Department shipped seventy-two Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, and Caddo prisoners from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. These most resistant Native people, referred to as and#8220;trouble causers,and#8221; arrived to curious, boisterous crowds eager to see the Indian warriors they knew only from imagination.
Fort Marion Prisoners and the Trauma of Native Education is an evocative work of creative nonfiction, weaving together history, oral traditions, and personal experience to tell the story of these Indian prisoners.
Resurrecting the voices and experiences of the prisoners who underwent a painful regimen of assimilation, Diane Glancyand#8217;s work is part history, part documentation of personal accounts, and a search for imaginative openings into the lives of the prisoners who left few of their own records other than carvings in their cellblocks and the famous ledger books. They learned English, mathematics, geography, civics, and penmanship with the knowledge that acquiring the same education as those in the U.S.and#160;government would be their best tool for petitioning for freedom. Glancy reveals stories of survival and an intimate understanding of the Fort Marion prisonersand#8217; predicament.
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Synopsis
Beard was not only a witness to two major battles against the Lakota; he also traveled with William and#8220;Buffalo Billand#8221; Codyand#8217;s Wild West show, worked as a Hollywood Indian, and witnessed the grand transformation of the Black Hills into a tourism mecca. Beard spent most of his later life fighting to reclaim his homeland and acting as and#8220;old Dewey Beard,and#8221; a living relic of the and#8220;old Westand#8221; for the tourists.
About the Author
Diane Glancy is an emerita professor of English at Macalester College and is currently a professor at Azusa Pacific University in California. She is the author of numerous novels, including Claiming Breath (Nebraska, 1992), Designs of the Night Sky (Nebraska, 2002), and The Reason for Crows: A Story of Kateri Tekakwitha.
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