Synopses & Reviews
A groundbreaking exploration of one of the worst Indian massacres in American history illuminates the clash of American, Mexican, and tribal cultures in the southwestern borderlands.
In the predawn hours of April 30, 1871, a combined party of Americans, Mexicans, and Tohono Oaodham Indians gathered just outside an Apache camp in the Arizona borderlands. At the first light of day they struck, murdering nearly 150 Apaches, mostly women and children, in their sleep. In its day, the atrocity, which came to be known as the Camp Grant Massacre, generated unparalleled national attention, federal investigations, heated debate in the press, and a tense criminal trial. This was the era of the United States "peace policy" toward Indians, and the Apaches had been living on a would-be reservation, under the supposed protection of the U.S. Army. President Ulysses Grant decried the act as purely murder, a but American settlers countered that the distant U.S. government had failed to protect them from Apache attacks, and they were forced to take justice into their own hands.
In the past century, the massacre has largely faded from memory. Now, drawing on oral histories, newspaper reports, and the participants own accounts, prizewinning author Karl Jacoby brings this horrific incident and tumultuous era to life. What brought this party together on that fateful April morning, and what led them to commit such a stunning act of violence? Shadows at Dawn traces the escalating conflicts, as well as the alliances, that transpired among the Americans, Mexicans, Apache, and Tohono Oaodham living in the borderlands over the course of several hundred years, beginning with the seventeenth-century arrival of the first Spanish missionaries. The American presence brought further transformations, especially after the Gadsden Purchase transferred a large swath of Mexican territory to the United States, leaving many Mexicans feeling like foreigners in their own land. By recounting the events from the perspective of each of the four parties involved, Jacoby challenges the dominance of the American version of the western story and also reveals the way each group has remembered, or forgotten, the massacre.
Prodigiously researched and powerfully written, Shadows at Dawn examines a forgotten atrocity and in doing so paints a sweeping panorama of the southwestern border lands world far more complex, culturally diverse, and morally ambiguous than the traditional portrayals of the Old West.
Review
"Jacoby sheds insight into the social, political, and economic complexities that characterized the nineteenth-century frontier." Booklist
Review
"This deftly constructed historical work demonstrates that what appears to have been a minor event can in fact illuminate important historical truths that should not be forgotten. Jacoby's superbly researched monograph is highly recommended." Library Journal
Review
"A lucid, well-written work of regional history that opens necessary conversation and has broader implications essential for students of the American West." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
This groundbreaking exploration of one of the worst Indian massacres in American history illuminates the clash of American, Mexican, and tribal cultures in the southwestern borderlands.
Synopsis
A masterful reconstruction of one of the worst Indian massacres in American history In April 1871, a group of Americans, Mexicans, and Tohono O?odham Indians surrounded an Apache village at dawn and murdered nearly 150 men, women, and children in their sleep. In the past century the attack, which came to be known as the Camp Grant Massacre, has largely faded from memory. Now, drawing on oral histories, contemporary newspaper reports, and the participants? own accounts, prize-winning author Karl Jacoby brings this perplexing incident and tumultuous era to life to paint a sweeping panorama of the American Southwest?a world far more complex, diverse, and morally ambiguous than the traditional portrayals of the Old West.
About the Author
Karl Jacoby is an associate professor of history at Brown University and the author of Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves and the Hidden History of American Conservation, which was awarded the Littleton-Griswold Prize by the American Historical Association for the best book on American law and society and the George Perkins Marsh Prize by the American Society for Environmental History for the best work of environmental history.
Table of Contents
Shadows At Dawn
Foreword: Patricia Nelson Limerick Introduction
A Note on Terminology
Part One: Violence
The O'odham
Los Vecinos
The Americans
The Nnee
Part Two: Justice
Part Three: Memory
The O'odham
Los Vecinos
The Americans
The Nnee
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Image Credits