Book Description
In 1886 Walter McClintock went to northwestern Montana as a member of a U.S. Forest Service expedition. He was adopted as a son by Chief Mad Dog, the high priest of the Sun Dance, and spent the next four years living on the Blackfoot Reservation. The Old North Trail, originally published in 1910, is a record of his experiences among the Blackfeet.
Customer Reviews:
One of the few books I still love.......2006-06-27
How could it be possible to adequately describe such a powerful -indeed, magical- account of a young man's time with the Blackfeet in the early twentieth century, a time when much of the Old Ways still lived among the Blackfeet people. I have owned or or another edition of The Old North Trail since 1970, and have ever since then been entranced by McClintock's unselfconscious limpid prose style, his descriptions of a summer snowstorm, or a grand encampment of the Blackfeet, the way Indian people in northern Montana prepared and stored food for the coming of winter, or the simple, deep, and everlastingly real relationship with a culture which was even at that late date still indescribably precious and beautiful. Both a superb travelog and a microscopically observed anthropological account of life with the Blackfeet, this book is an extended love letter to the Indian people with whom Walter McC lived. As I write this review I'm transported back to my early twenties, a California surfer just out of college, immersed in a hot deep bath, reading The Old North Trail at sunup in Inverness, Scotland, and forgetting where I was, so completely did this book cast its spell. This is one of the very, very few books with which I am still in love.
The Old North Trail is as authentic as the journal of L& C.......1999-05-25
Walter McClintock was a young man who came to the Blackfeet Country at about the turn of the century. He was a trained scientist who could use a camera and he kept careful notes. This is not a romance novel nor anthropological interpretation. McClintock was simply there and made friends well enough to be accepted. He recorded stories, rituals (also took photos), and daily incidents as well as much natural history. He was really there and he is an honest and graceful reporter.
Book Description
"From boyhood," wrote Francis Parkman, "I had a taste for the woods and the Indians." His lifelong fascination with these American subjects are brilliantly recorded in "The Oregon Trail" and "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," his two earliest works. Parkman began his travels to the northern wilderness during his student years at Harvard in the 1840s, then went west after graduation. His first and most famous book, "The Oregon Trail," is a vivid account of his adventures on the open frontier and his encounters with Plains Indians in their last era of free, nomadic life. "The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada," Parkman's first historical work, portrays the fierce conflict that erupted along the Great Lakes in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War and chronicles the defeats in which both the eastern Indians and their forest "received their final doom."
Customer Reviews:
Classic History.......2005-05-24
Francis Parkman was an eccentric Harvard graduate whose life work was the struggle of the British and French for North America (although he is better known to the general reader for
his youthful exploration of the West described in The Oregon Trail). He was fluent in French and was assiduous in his investigations of primary sources. He also had a gift for lyrical narration (see the last paragraph of The Conspiracy of Pontiac, which describes the fate of the "forest hero").
His perspective on the American Indian was realistic. He knew
the Indian and respected him, but also realized his flaws and this has made him persona non grata among some modern circles.
That's what describing an Indian village as a "motley concourse of barbarians" will do! However, the reader may learn for himself in this book the fate of the captives from the fort at Michillimackinac and that of the pathetic one-room schoolhouse in the Ohio River valley and see if the 18th century tribes did not truly have a potential for utter savagery.
The "Original" American West - in Two Volumes.......2000-06-23
This volume is a reader's delight, for it presents not one but two of Francis Parkman's classic works: The Oregon Trail and The Conspiracy of Pontiac. Rightly hailed as America's greatest historian, in The Oregon Trail Francis Parkman relates a journey to the 1840's American West - undertaken for the express purpose of living among "real" American Indian tribes of the Great Plains before their way of life passed forever. By this experience Parkman hoped to better understand and relate what eastern tribes had so tragically fought for and lost in the preceding century's struggle for the continent. The Oregon Trail is a great book in its own right, and has been reviewed by this reader previously (see more in "About Me/Other Reviews"), but the primary focus of this review is Parkman's study of a crucial chapter in the development of North America as we know it today: the disastrous consequences France's defeat in Canada would bring to the remaining eastern tribes. For this event would inexorably lead to the explosion of the English colonies across lands heretofore held by them under French "dominion".
While the Iroquois Nations had long maintained an uneasy alliance with the English as they pushed their way into the western reaches of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, those further west knew what the defeat of the French would bring: utter destruction. The Ottawa, Ojibwa, Pottawattami, Delaware, Shawnee, Illinois, Sauk and Foxes had long fought the intrusion of the arrogant and land-grabbing English from Quebec to the Mississippi. Pontiac himself had fought beside the Marquis de Montcalm as he tried in vain to save New France from ruin during the French & Indian War. But at last, in the mid-1700s France finally capitulated to her English rivals, her hold on the North American continent broken forever. The only task left to the conquerors was to make their way across the Great Lakes, into the valleys of the Ohio, and down the Mississippi into the Illinois country to make their claim upon the former French forts and trading houses. For a brief time a singular leader and a dozen nations blocked their way: Pontiac and his assembled allies.
Parkman sets the stage by briefly relating the history of France and England in America from the early 1600s-1760s, then meticulously details the source of the tribes' many grievances - grievances which would directly lead to Pontiac's bold attempt to decisively halt the English advance.
Though doomed to ultimate defeat against the onslaught of English guns and armies, traders and pioneers, for a short time Pontiac's initiative was remarkably successful. He brought war to nearly all of western America at the same time - from the siege at Detroit to the forests outside the gates of Niagara, from upper Michigan and Wisconsin to the Ohio valley, into western Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York, down the many rivers and tributaries leading into the Mississipi. A dozen forts fell before him and hundreds of miles of frontier settlements emptied in terror.
Parkman's work is perhaps the best chronicle of many of these tribes' last desperate fight for their lives and land. Those interested in the history of the struggles destined to come shortly to the tribes west of the Mississippi will derive much insight from Parkman's treatment of Pontiac's war. For his "conspiracy" was the original "last great battle" for the "American West" - 100 years before the battle for the further western Plains would come to an ignominious close. To understand Pontiac's war, the motives of both his people and the English and French, as well as the burgeoning force who would soon thereafter cast off their identity as "colonists" is to understand much of what would follow as American history.
Average customer rating:
- Power Photographs and Message -- Introduction Troubling
- Moving, visual testimony of the long forced march
|
On the Trail to Wounded Knee: The Big Foot Memorial Ride
Guy Le Querrec
Manufacturer: The Lyons Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Native American
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Old West
| 19th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Reconstruction
| 19th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1585745332 |
Book Description
A moving photographic essay documenting the Lakota Sioux's retracing of their doomed ancestors' trail to Wounded Knee.
Customer Reviews:
Power Photographs and Message -- Introduction Troubling.......2005-01-01
BEWARE THE INTRODUCTION
I'm very torn on this review, as the criminal tragedy at Wounded Knee does indeed require national awareness and attonement. Photographer LeQuerrec has compiled an exceedingly moving testimony to the tragedy, with images that speak more eloquently than any words. Since I was 13 and began my own journey learning of the shameful acts against the native peoples during this county's rapid expansion - I've felt obligated to know and do whatever part I could take in attonement.
That said - the introduction to the book by Jim Harrison took me aback. While emotionally trying to make the point that most of mainstream America is relatively ignorant of the negative aspects of its past (true), and by the nature of our capitalist society there is an often obscene gap between wealth and poverty in this country (true), Harrison somehow shifts from a call to responsibility to a screed against the US in general. We have our faults, and have done evil things as a people -- but artifically transfering this to modern US foreign policy (as Harrison does - lamenting US treatment of China and Cuba) in my opinion denegrates the message of Wounded Knee. Mao-ist China and Castro Cuba are not the same thing as 19th century continental expansion and colonialism, and to draw China and Cuba into the discussion (as Harrison does in the introduction) merely shows some sense of warped idealistic views of Marxist societies. My family suffered 40 years under marxist rule in the DDR - so I have an obvious differing view from the author on the "idyllic" nature of communist countries. Also, the five letter description Harrison uses in the introduction to describe the Statue of Liberty (shock value?) is over the top and beneath what this book and its message should be about.
In fairness, Harrison's quote from Bertold Brecht "whom you would destroy, you first portray as savage" is an excellent point in introducing Wounded Knee and its place in our history. Maybe I wasn't expecting to be hit quite so hard. I'm torn with wanting to rip the intro out of the book -- or keep reading it as a needed "kick."
Moving, visual testimony of the long forced march.......2002-10-07
Guy Le Querrec's On The Trail To Wounded Knee: The Big Foot Memorial Ride is an impressive photographic memorial of one of the most brutal and tragic massacres of Native Americans in recorded American history. In 1990, the one hundredth anniversary of the long journey and eventual slaughter of Chief Big Foot and most of his tribe, members of the Sioux nation retraced the journey in honor of those who suffered and died. Photographer Guy Le Querrec followed the trail with them, and captured these powerful black-and-white images. Vignettes and quotes from history are interspersed with this moving, visual testimony of the long forced march that has since become a symbol of American genocide.
Book Description
Promise: Bozeman's Trail to Destiny examines if the Bozeman Trail - that last great western trail through Wyoming and Montana that initiated the "Indian Wars" on the Northern Plains - was actually a route of invasion that lead to cultural devastation, displacement, physical and spiritual oppression; or whether the trail was a passage through the wilderness that lead to settlement, individual liberty, prosperity, territorial recognition and statehood. To help answer those questions, author Serle Chapman employs his extraordinary artistic ability with both pen and camera, writing sections from the opposing perspectives of an emigrant woman, and a young Cheyenne warrior, incorporating the prose, native language, and expressions of the day. Chapman's Cheyenne account of the infamous "Fetterman Massacre" is believed to be the definitive Native American interpretation of that engagement.
Customer Reviews:
Cheyenne Account of the Fetterman Battle Makes This The Best Book On The Subject.......2006-12-22
The handful of soldiers, along with their white men scouts Billy Dixon and Amos Chapman, traveled across the Llano Estacado wearily, but alert watching out for Kiowa, Comanche, or whatever else might expose them to immediate danger. It had been a long journey and getting home must have been a priority; however, that homecoming would be cut short in dramatic fashion.
One can see far and wide while standing on the plains inside the panhandle of Texas. In the days before man built infrastructures and planted trees, one could see forever. Seeing forever must have driven one crazy during a full day's ride on a horse. When Chapman and the others first saw the dots on the horizon, they wondered what they were. They'd find out soon enough.
They probably heard the whiz and ping of bullets flying through the air and striking the ground before they figured out what the dots were. So, where does one go for shelter from bullets when on the Llano Estacado? There were no trees, no rocks, no buildings, nothing. One prays that his horse is a bit fresher than the horse carrying the fella shooting at you. If that fails, then one must stand and fight, but what if you're outnumbered 20 to one?
Chapman knew what to look for in shelter. Running the horses hard, it still took time to find that shelter. In the distance he spotted buffalo wallows; those shallow earthly depressions where buffalo would roll on their backs into the ground. He moved the soldiers toward those craters as the enemy quickly gained on them. Private Smith went down, the others continued jumping into the wallow. Ping, whiz, ping, ping.
Chapman finally recognized the enemy: Kiowa, and around 100 of them. Hell, he even knew some of them. He heard the groans coming from the mortally wounded Smith far away, out on the Llano. The horses with their canteens were lost, now in the hands of the Kiowa. Without time to catch his breath, Chapman ran for Smith and his extra ammunition 100 yards away. Whiz, whiz, ping, ping.
Chapman grabbed Smith and retreated toward the buffalo wallow with a dozen Kiowa in hot pursuit. A bullet struck Chapman in the leg, but he kept moving with his heavy load. As Chapman and Smith tumbled into the wallow, there came a loud crack which must have been recognizable to every soldier cradling hard to the ground. The excruciating pain was undeniable to Chapman. His leg had snapped in two. At least they had the extra ammunition. Smith succumbed to his wounds, and started his final march as he let out his last breath. He was in a better place, and for now the rest of them had a chance. Chapman would worry about his leg and getting home later. For now, he fired his carbine.
And then, something strange happened; the Kiowa simply rode away. The Battle of the Buffalo Wallow was finished. Chapman and the soldiers felt very lucky. Just moments before, they were doomed; now they would make it home hurt but alive.
Chapman was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in recovering Smith during the Battle of the Buffalo Wallow. Chapman eventually married Mary Long Neck of the Cheyenne tribe. They had children, and one of their sons became the father of Serle L. Chapman whose book is reviewed here.
The Promise overture finds Mr. Chapman standing before the monument that remembers his grandfather and the soldiers' battle in the buffalo wallow on the Llano Estacado. It is here that our journey begins; the narrative style moves gracefully from lyrical to legend to history and back again. It takes a little getting used to, but once understood, the book feels like a journey on a blanket of clouds during time travel. It's a truly unique and wonderful experience for a historical storyline.
The spirit and sensitive soul of Mr. Chapman comes through loud and clear in every page of Promise. Amos and Mary Long Neck Chapman shine brightly within their grandson. His words are resolute yet poetic, his understanding of the Cheyenne way and white man's world combined produce a work of deeper understanding from which the reader can learn and gain enjoyment.
Promise comes in an oversized package perfect for its display of beautiful photographs (also by Chapman) of Wyoming; its wildlife, its history, and its people both past and present can be fully appreciated throughout the pages of the book. Descendents of important people from the Cheyenne and Lakota share their accounts of life along the Bozeman Trail. Leaders from the Ft. Phil Kearny Association share their knowledge of life in the forts along the trails as well. Wonderful portrait photographs of each of these contributors garnish the pages of this book. Mr. Chapman is an award-winning photographer, and his talent is evident throughout.
We quickly learn that the classic clash of cultures was very complex. Mr. Chapman first takes us on a fantastic journey of the frontier life through a fictional character, a white woman traveling over the Bozeman Trail. We read from her daily journal and learn of the hardships and dangers these people faced every single day. These travelers of the trail were full of optimism in the challenges that came from making a new life: their new life full of promise and hope.
Promise soars highest when Mr. Chapman tells the story of Red Cloud's War with emphasis on the Fetterman Battle. This time his character is an unnamed old Cheyenne warrior reflecting back on his younger years: the days of Sand Creek, the attack on Julesberg, Battle of Platte Bridge, Battle of Beecher Island, and more. It is truly fascinating to experience this history in terms of Cheyenne thought, language, and perspective.
An incident during the Red Cloud War involved a brief moment when Lakota warriors beat Cheyenne leaders with their bows, while claiming the Cheyenne were cowards; they counted coup on an ally. Mr. Chapman spends valuable time with this incident and for the first time reveals its total effect on the Cheyenne people.
Mr. Chapman's story of the Fetterman Battle is the version told from the Cheyenne and Lakota perspective, published here for the first time. Mr. Chapman doesn't just rely on oral history; he also corroborates these accounts with the historical record. The book includes extensive endnotes. Thus, Mr. Chapman provides us with the most detailed account of the Fetterman Battle to date.
Mr. Chapman's old warrior narrator tells a painful story of death and grief with graceful language. Death doesn't come easy in Promise, and it doesn't come without purpose. As the Fetterman Battle opens, warriors wait in gullies and ravines for Crazy Horse and the other decoys to return with soldiers to kill. It's cold; there is fear in the narrator's voice:
"There were no soldiers, or none that we could see, until Crazy Horse brought them...the soldiers came up in a cloud behind this man and fanned along the edge of the Lodgepole Hills as feathers in a bustle. Bullets fell around him, the hail from that blue cloud, but he was not hit, although I thought the pony must have been shot in the leg when the man began looking at it that way. Yes, this was Little Hawk's swift pony, and so the man had to be Crazy Horse. As far away as we were, you could see his long hair like the color of that pony, hanging loose and falling over a red blanket which he had tied over his war shirt and blue leggings. It did not seem that the soldiers wanted to follow Crazy Horse, and they stood looking down at him, walking soldiers in the middle of some pony soldiers." (page 102)
Death doesn't come easy along Massacre Ridge as the narrator explains:
"Those still on horses were whipping them, and it was odd to see these men (soldiers) moving so fast and their horses moving so slow. One of them fell off and seemed to pull his horse on top of him. I saw three arrows in this horse...Some Little Stars counted coup on the soldier but were pushed away from him by much shooting. Then the shooting stopped, and the soldier's arms started to claw at the ground but his legs would not work. Maybe the horse had broken his back, I do not know. Wherever he is now, he is crawling still, for the women of the Little Stars finished him. The pony soldier on the white horse was still among the Little Stars, and I was much closer now, so close that I could hear the iron hooves of the soldiers' horses on the hard ground and the noise the pony soldier chief's long knife made when he cut the head off a young boy who tried to shoot him but snapped his bowstring." (page 105)
The narrator shares his feelings of battle as Captains Fetterman and Brown come closer to death:
"Some of the pony soldiers were not shooting, they were trying to hold onto their big horses. The smell of blood and smoke was all around, and even now when I see a herd of elk I can see these soldiers. Just as elk cows with their thin-legged calves will crowd together and turn one way and then another and then back again in fear, so did these soldiers. It seemed as if the two soldier chiefs were shouting at each other, but I do not know if they were, as everything was lost in the screams of dying horses and men, the snap of guns, our strong heart cries and the thunder of our ponies' hooves hunting the soldiers who broke away. We moved as swallows, cutting through the air with our arrows, our ponies on the wing taking us above the fighting where it all became quiet. But it was not, that is just a place you go to sometimes in a fight." (page 107)
There is no doubt in my mind; Mr. Chapman's accounting of the Fetterman Battle is the best I've read for its accuracy and dramatic effect. His battle is not just about soldiers positioned here and Indians attacking from there; instead it tugs at our hearts. Soldiers and Cheyenne men and women warriors were willing to die, for some in a strange place so far from home, in order to make a better life. Finally, there is a version of the Fetterman Battle that is heart filled.
A history of conflicts between whites and Native Americans.......2005-02-08
Extensively illustrated with vintage black-and-white and full-color photographs on virtually every page, Promise: Bozeman's Trail To Destiny is a thorough history of conflicts between whites and Native Americans along the historic Bozeman Trail. Rich in narrative detail, and drawing on primary sources such as interviews and oral history as well as secondary sources, Promise strives to present as accurate a picture as possible of what daily life and the deadly struggles were truly like. Accessible to readers of all backgrounds, Promise is a welcome and much-needed, in-depth contribution to Native American history shelves.
Book Description
In eight chapters that begin in 1860 and end in 1890, accompanied by illustrations, photographs-some published for the first time-and maps, find the story of the demise of the Plains Indians: proud, strong, and resourceful, the very image of the American West. Chapter by chapter see how their ancient culture was decimated in a single generation, through three decades of bitter warfare. Between the end of the Civil War and the white man's final conquest of the frontier, U.S. Army soldiers and Indians collided again and again, in the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Washita, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and in other fierce chases, retreats, and clashes, culminating in the devastating massacre of Big Foot's village at Wounded Knee in December 1890. This eloquent story is written by Herman Viola, a scholar and advocate of the American Indian who has been entrusted with the story by Native American scholars.
Average customer rating:
|
The California and Oregon Trail: Being sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain life (Classics of the Old West)
Francis Parkman
Manufacturer: Time-Life Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
History
| Subjects
| Books
| Africa
| Americas
| Ancient
| Arctic & Antarctica
| Asia
| Audiobooks
| Australia & Oceania
| Books on CD
| Books on Cassette
| Europe
| Gay & Lesbian
| Historical Study
| Large Print
| Middle East
| Military
| Military Science
| Russia
| United States
| World
General
| California
| States
| United States
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Oregon
| States
| United States
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
North America
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0809443546 |
Book Description
In the first book to focus on relations between Indians and emigrants on the overland trails, Michael L. Tate shows that such encounters were far more often characterized by cooperation than by conflict. Having combed hundreds of unpublished sources and Indian oral traditions, Tate finds Indians and Anglo-Americans continuously trading goods and news with each other, and Indians providing various forms of assistance to overlanders.
Despite thousands of mutually beneficial exchanges between whites and Indians between 1840 and 1870, the image of Plains Indians as the overland pioneers' worst enemies prevailed in American popular culture. In explaining the persistence of that stereotype, Tate seeks to dispel one of the West's oldest cultural misunderstandings.
Customer Reviews:
an American myth exposed.......2007-03-23
The first chapter deals with the preconceived ideas of many of the emigrants, brought on by a plethora of books about Indians. From James Fenimore Coopers' The Last of the Mohicans to the Beadle's Dime Novel series to the fearful warnings of trail guidebooks, those who had never seen Indians read about them and formed stereotypes. The book next describes first encounters at river crossings near the beginning of the overland journey and follows with anecdotes of trading between emigrants and Indians. The next topic is Indian assistance to emigrants, then mutual friendships through gift-giving and social exchanges. The book discusses the phenomenon of white outlaws along the trail, whose actions were often blamed on the Indians. But significant material is devoted to those white people who looked beyond the prevalent stereotypes and made efforts to befriend native people and treat them with kindness.
Other topics treated in the book include the slaughter of bison and other wildlife along the overland trails, and the epidemics that accompanied the emigrants. A lengthy chapter is devoted to Indian massacres, real and supposed. The bulk of the chapter covers supposed massacres, in the forms of false alarms, exaggerated and fabricated tales, and white complicity in "Indian" attacks.
Another chapter deals with captivity narratives. Many accounts are examined, and many of these, especially later reminiscences, are found to be lacking credibility. But true accounts from journals are examined also. The last chapter discusses treaties and annuities, retributive justice, and the role of the army along western trails as cooperation degenerated into conflict. Still, incidents of friendship between Native Americans and white emigrants continued even while war broke out and the era of the overland trails came to an end.
Throughout the book, the personal narratives and eyewitness accounts lend credibility and readability, and statistics help to put these accounts into perspective. This book is very well-researched and documented, with 29 pages of endnotes and an extensive bibliography. This book provides a well-rounded and very human history of the overland trails.
Folklore of Indian Atrocities is Busted.......2006-04-25
Movie scene 1957 -- Pioneers in covered wagons observe Indians on horseback upon a ridge. The white women and children start to panic as the men quickly move the wagons into a defensive circle. Children are hidden under bedding inside the wagons; men scramble to hurry the horses within the circle while mounted warriors dressed in war paint move down the hillside. Horses secured, the white men now lay prone behind wagon wheels and stacked boxes as they nervously watch the warriors move towards them.
The Indians ready arrows and begin their fearsome yells as they lead their Appaloosa ponies into a full gallop. The white men take careful aim with their polished Winchesters and open fire dropping warriors with each shot. The white men are eventually overcome, killed, and scalped. The movie fades to black as the Indians leave the scene of the bloody massacre with captured women and children in tow. We can only fear the worst from their situation.
Fast forward to 2006 and the book: "Indians and Emigrants: Encounters on the Overland Trails" by Michael L. Tate. It ain't nothing like the movies. Hollywood would never make a movie from this book only because they couldn't imagine the world believing in it. Tate's sweeping grand adventure should be read attentively for its profound evocation of myth vs. reality regarding the relationship between the two races, which met on the plains of America in the 19th century. The vast majority of those meetings were actually cordial and beneficial for both parties.
Vastly researched with primary evidence, Tate presents winning arguments for such a reality. Factors which contributed to the white folklore of Indian atrocities were the emigrants complete misunderstanding of the Plains Indian culture, "...fanciful series of books and pamphlets written mostly by amateurs who knew little about Indians or frontier life", and the grossly exaggerated "Goldilocks Syndrome."
Peering through countless diaries and petitions to Congress, Tate found very few accounts of Indian atrocities, which included murder, rape, and kidnappings of women and children. Backtracking the many stories of three-year-old blonde daughters (Goldilocks Syndrome) being raped and kidnapped, Tate confirms that this syndrome was and is nothing more than a falsehood or half-truths - it definitely is not history. Proven to be exaggerated and/or fabricated by second hand print in newspapers and cheap-thrill books are supposedly first-hand accounts of atrocities. Additionally, Tate verifies accounts of captives refusing to return to their old way of life with their white relatives.
Reading through these astonishing revelations one has to wonder if the Indians had more to fear from the whites. Tate documents accounts where Indian villages actually fled the approach of emigrants along the major trails.
Revisionist historians writing today are on campaign to perpetuate the myth of old Hollywood. Their selective documentation leads one to conclude they choose cheap thrills from yesterday just to sell a story in a magazine or a book. Yet, their campaign of falsely ascribing warriors to terrorists further embolden those who still embrace racist views toward Indians. Tate, on the other hand is honest in his reporting - he does not ignore those instances where Indians committed atrocities against whites. There is no attempt to create a false utopia on the plains or to remodel a warrior into a terrorist. Tate's analysis reshapes the stereotypical mold of Indian depredations against emigrants along the trails to its proper shape: exactness.
Average customer rating:
|
The old bay paths,: Their villages and byways and their stories,
George Francis Marlowe
Manufacturer: Hastings House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
History
| Subjects
| Books
| Africa
| Americas
| Ancient
| Arctic & Antarctica
| Asia
| Audiobooks
| Australia & Oceania
| Books on CD
| Books on Cassette
| Europe
| Gay & Lesbian
| Historical Study
| Large Print
| Middle East
| Military
| Military Science
| Russia
| United States
| World
North America
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B0007E7H5U |
Book Description
Hear an eye-witness account of one of the grandest adventures in American history. Francis Parkman's journal -- written more than 150 years ago, in 1846 -- captures the color, spirit, and perspective of a Harvard-educated Bostonian traveling in the Rocky Mountains and living among the Dakota Sioux. Parkman's classic narrative traces his 1,700-mile journey, peopled by the traders, woodsmen, trappers, gamblers and Native Americans he encountered. Frank Muller's outstanding reading draws the listener into the drama. Named a 1996 "Best Audio for Memoir/Autobiography" by Publishers Weekly. 4 cassettes.
Download Description
The West as it was when The White Man first saw it; a vivid, personal account
Customer Reviews:
Just what I expected.......2007-05-13
I ordered this book based on the film, " The Oregan Trail," which I enjoyed watching. The book is a good follow-up to the movie, making much of the content even more real for me.
The Wild West.......2006-10-13
Parkman's travelogue on the Great Plains is a major work of life among the Native Americans. His descriptions are honest and capture a society that was fading even while he was writing. The book had a major impact on the way that non-westerners saw the Great Plains. This was both good and bad. Parkman wrote through the lens of a Boston aristocrat and was full of prejudices against those who did not meet his standards. This was dangerous in that many who read about the "backwardness" of the Native Americans used this as justification for "civilizing" them. Although this was probably not Parkman's intention, it was a consequence of his writing. In addition, he promoted the hunting of buffalo for sport, which led to the decimation of the buffalo heards on the Plains.
Another major issue with this book is that, in spite of its title, it is not about the Oregon Trail. Parkman went no further than the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and he did all in his power to dissociate himself from the pioneers moving along the Oregon Trail. If you are looking for a history of the trail, this book will not satisfy your needs.
However, in spite of the misleading title and the prejudices that surface throughout the book, it is still a fine piece of writing that opens up a world that has been lost to today's readers. Read it and enjoy your travels into another time and place.
Parkman the master of Historians.......2006-09-01
In a day when "historians" make comment on the long dead or events from the confines of their apartments, Francis Parkman is the person who actually experienced the history he wrote about. There is no political correctness in Parkman and he describes savages, French, frontiersmen and Mormons exactly as they were without apology.
This work is a masterpiece everyone should read and be a guidebook to modern historians who spend more time working a political end and getting in the way of history rather than letting history tell it's truthful tale.
Parkman is not just the historian or recorder of events. He is the bard of Sioux myth, the geologist, biologist and countless other things describing flora, fauna and weather. He is complete in having that air of Boston social elite in beginning his journey and returning from the plains an American having tasted, smelled and breathed the savage world and revealed the eastern thoughts on how that world would evolve for the next 60 years.
Parkman is remarkable and the best compliment for this book is to recommend that readers search for other Parkman histories to read as they are real.
I am currently in his wonderful Montecalm and Wolfe series on the history of Canada which actually created America. If you have children, share Parkman's history with them as he will make it come alive for them.
As you can see by all of the lengthy reviews, Francis Parkman invokes a great deal of thought and emotion in his histories which transfers to the reader.
Generally exciting account of the Oregon Trail.......2005-12-04
The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman is an account which further enforces the history of the Oregon Trail we had learned about in [U.S. History] class. The book portrays what it must have been like to travel on the Trail, never knowing what the next day would bring. The buffalo hunting which took place throughout the book became monotonous and boring after the first exciting few, but other than that repetitiveness, the journey was well depicted. I especially enjoyed Parkman's in-depth descriptions given to the reader of the people he meets on his journey and his observations on their actions as well. His vivid imagery of scenes from nature such as animals, prairie landscapes, and the weather, place the reader right next to Parkman in his adventuresome expedition. There are some dull, repetitive points in the observations made by the author, but aside from that his autobiographical telling of his journey is unforgettable.
A Classic for a Reason.......2005-03-12
The Oregon Trail still stands as a classic of American literature and of a rapidly vanishing past. Written as an account of a summer he spent traveling the Oregon Trail, Parkman captures the details of communal Native American life with no sentimentality, just hard reality. Even though written in 1846, Parkman is amazingly precise in his estimation of the vanishing frontier and Native American way of life. At times, he is rather callous toward the Native Americans, but this also reflects his times and environment. Highly recommended.
Books:
- The Oxford Book of Days
- The Prince (Bantam Classics)
- The Social Roots of Basque Nationalism (Basque Series)
- The Southern Debate over Slavery: vol. 1: Petitions to Southern Legislatures, 1778-1864 (Southern Debate Over Slavery)
- The Study of Human Nature: A Reader
- The Top 10 Lyme Disease Treatments: Defeat Lyme Disease with the Best of Conventional and Alternative Medicine
- The Ultimate Time Machine: A Remote Viewer's Perception of Time, and Predictions for the New Millennium
- The Ultimate Wyoming Atlas and Travel Encyclopedia
- The Western Heritage: Combined Volume, TLC Edition (5th Edition)
- Treasure Lost at Sea: Diving to the World's Great Shipwrecks
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong
- The French-Inspired Home, with French General
- Online Trader's Dictionary: The Most Up-to-Date and Authoritative Compendium of Financial Terms
- Racial and Ethnic Relations
- Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin
- The Old West Collection
- Seasons on the Pacific Coast: A Naturalist's Notebook
- The Euro Impact on Tourism 1998
- Money Doesn't Grow On Trees: A Parent's Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Children
- Paid to Play: An Insider's Guide to Video Game Careers
Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians (Sources of American Indian Oral Literature)
The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories: Three Hundred Years of Blackfoot History
The Blackfeet Raiders on the Northwestern Plains (Civilization of the American Indian Series)
Blackfoot Lodge Tales
My Life as an Indian
