Synopses & Reviews
At dawn on January 23, 1870, four hundred men of the Second U.S. Cavalry attacked and butchered a Piegan camp near the Marias River in Montana in one of the worst slaughters of Indians by American military forces in U.S. history. Coming to avenge the murder of their father--a former fur-trader named Malcolm Clarke who had been killed four months earlier by their Piegan mother's cousin--Clarke 's own two sons joined the cavalry in a slaughter of many of their own relatives. In this groundbreaking work of American history, Andrew R. Graybill places the Marias Massacre within a larger, three-generation saga of the Clarke family, particularly illuminating the complex history of native-white intermarriage in the American Northwest.
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"Brings to life a remarkable family that lived at the intersection of worlds, where the fur trade and intermarriage blurred the distinction between American Indians and white Americans." T.J. Stiles, author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War
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"A touching portrait of race relations on the frontier. . . . . Evocative details and a close attention to the arc of its subjects' lives lend Graybill's narrative emotional heft. . . .
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"Fascinating insights into race relations on the evolving frontier.... highly recommended for all readers interested in the 19-century West." Library Journal
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"Fascinating and often moving." Robert B. Mitchell
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"Transforms a tragic, 19th-century story of heartbreak and revenge on the Rocky Mountain frontier, into a dynamic, multi-generational history. . . . . Shakespearean in its tragedy and Biblical in its parable of how the Indian tribes have endured a diaspora of such magnitude. . . . [The] Clarke family chose a purposeful, meaningful life, offering up, for all of us, a shining example of the power and strength of the human spirit." Washington Post
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A masterful treatment of a much-neglected aspect of American history. . . . A must-read" Wichita Eagle
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
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"A gripping Western saga. . . .
Synopsis
Winner of the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award. One of the American West's bloodiest--and least-known--massacres is searingly re-created in this generation-spanning history of native-white intermarriage.
About the Author
Andrew R. Graybill is the director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies and chairman of the History Department at Southern Methodist University. He lives in Dallas, Texas.