Download or read book Eagle Voice Remembers written by John G. Neihardt and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-02 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Eagle Voice Remembers] is John Neihardt’s mature and reflective interpretation of the old Sioux way of life. He served as a translator of the Sioux past, whose audience has proved not to be limited by space or time. Through Neihardt’s writings Black Elk, Eagle Elk, and other old men who were of that last generation of Sioux to have participated in the old buffalo-hunting life and the disorienting period of strife with the U.S. Army found a literary voice. What they say chronicles a dramatic transition in the life of the Plains Indians; the record of their thoughts, interpreted by Neihardt, is a legacy preserved for the future. It transcends the specifics of this one tragic case of cultural misunderstanding and conflict and speaks to universal human concerns. It is a story worth contemplating both for itself and for the lessons it teaches all humanity.”—from the introduction by Raymond J. DeMallie In her foreword Coralie Hughes discusses John G. Neihardt’s intention that this book, formerly titled When the Tree Flowered, be understood as a prequel to his classic Black Elk Speaks. In this new edition David C. Posthumus adds clarity through his annotations, introducing Eagle Voice Remembers to a new generation of readers and presenting a fresh understanding for fans of the original.
Download or read book A Voice of the Old West written by James McGee and published by Author House. This book was released on 2005-02-22 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary picture of life in the Old West of 19th century Colorado mining towns as seen through the poetry of a talented woman. The poems touch universal human concerns: The laments of lost youth and of getting older, poems of love and of grief, of nature and of maternal experiences. In addition, there are stories of the times: the suicide of a local prostitute, a “Hiawatha”-like Indian story, a humorous story of a cowboy whose demise resulted because “he ate his pie with a fork” and mining stories from Leadville, Cripple Creek and other places. Some of the writings are almost unbearably poignant and others will bring out-loud laughter.
Download or read book Indians and Emigrants written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-08-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. Tate admits that both sides normally followed their own best interests and ethical standards, which sometimes created distrust. But many acts of kindness by emigrants and by Indians can be attributed to simple human compassion. Not until the mid-1850s did Plains tribes begin to see their independence and cultural traditions threatened by the flood of white travelers. As buffalo herds dwindled and more Indians died from diseases brought by emigrants, violent clashes between wagon trains and Indians became more frequent, and the first Anglo-Indian wars erupted on the plains. Yet, even in the 1860s, Tate finds, friendly encounters were still the rule. 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.
Download or read book The Great Medicine Road Part 1 written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-10-22 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1841 and 1866, more than 500,000 people followed trails to Oregon, California, and the Salt Lake Valley in one of the greatest mass migrations in American history. This collection of travelers’ accounts of their journeys in the 1840s, the first volume in a new series of trail narratives, comprises excerpts from pioneer and missionary letters, diaries, journals, and memoirs—many previously unpublished—accompanied by biographical information and historical background. Beginning with Father Pierre-Jean de Smet’s letters relating his encounters with Plains Indians, and ending with an account of a Mormon gold miner’s journey from California to Salt Lake City, these narratives tell varied and vivid stories. Some travelers fled hard times: religious persecution, the collapse of the agricultural economy, illness, or unpredictable weather. Others looked ahead, attracted by California gold, the verdant Willamette Valley of Oregon, or the prospect of converting Native people to Christianity. Although many welcomed the adventure and adjusted to the rigors of trail life, others complained in their accounts of difficulty adapting. Remembrances of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails have yielded some of the most iconic images in American history. This and forthcoming volumes in The Great Medicine Road series present the pioneer spirit of the original overlanders supported by the rich scholarship of the past century and a half.
Download or read book The Great Medicine Road Part 1 written by Will Bagley and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1841 and 1866, more than 500,000 people followed trails to Oregon, California, and the Salt Lake Valley in one of the greatest mass migrations in American history. This collection of travelers' accounts of their journeys in the 1840s, the first volume in a new series of trail narratives, comprises excerpts from pioneer and missionary letters, diaries, journals, and memoirs-many previously unpublished-accompanied by biographical information and historical background.
Download or read book The Great Medicine Road Part 2 written by Will Bagley and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-10 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the early weeks of 1848, as U.S. congressmen debated the territorial status of California, a Swiss immigrant and an itinerant millwright forever altered the future state’s fate. Building a sawmill for Johann August Sutter, James Wilson Marshall struck gold. The rest may be history, but much of the story of what happened in the following year is told not in history books but in the letters, diaries, journals, and other written recollections of those whom the California gold rush drew west. In this second installment in the projected four-part collection The Great Medicine Road: Narratives of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, the hardy souls who made the arduous trip tell their stories in their own words. Seven individuals’ tales bring to life a long-ago year that enriched some, impoverished others, and forever changed the face of North America. Responding to often misleading promotional literature, adventurers made their way west via different routes. Following the Carson River through the Sierra Nevada, or taking the Lassen Route to the Sacramento Valley, they passed through the Mormon Zion of Great Salt Lake City and traded with and often displaced Native Americans long familiar with the trails. Their accounts detail these encounters, as well as the gritty realities of everyday life on the overland trails. They narrate events, describe the vast and diverse landscapes they pass through, and document a journey as strange and new to them as it is to many readers today. Through these travelers’ diaries and memoirs, readers can relive a critical moment in the remaking of the West—and appreciate what a difference one year can make in the life of a nation.
Download or read book Devil s Gate written by Tom Rea and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Devil’s Gate—the name conjures difficult passage and portends a doubtful outcome. In this eloquent and captivating narrative, Tom Rea traces the history of the Sweetwater River valley in central Wyoming—a remote place including Devil’s Gate, Independence Rock, and other sites along a stretch of the Oregon Trail—to show how ownership of a place can translate into owning its story. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Devil’s Gate is the center of a landscape that threatens to shrink any inhabitants to insignificance except for one thing: ownership of the land and the stories they choose to tell about it. The static serenity of the once heavily traveled region masks a history of conflict. Tom Sun, an early rancher, played a role here in the lynching of the only woman ever hanged in Wyoming. The lynching was dismissed as swift frontier justice in the wake of cattle theft, but Rea finds more complicated motives that involve land and water rights. The Sun name was linked with the land for generations. In the 1990s, the Mormon Church purchased part of the Sun ranch to memorialize Martin’s Cove as the site of handcart pioneers who froze to death in the valley in 1856. The treeless, arid country around Devil’s Gate seems too immense for ownership. But stories run with the land. People who own the land can own the stories, at least for a time.
Download or read book It Happened on the Oregon Trail written by Tricia Martineau Wagner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the events that took place along the Oregon Trail are well known--the perils the Applegate family faced as they rafted down the raging Columbia River, the plight of the Donner Party as they found themselves snowbound and starving at Truckee Lake. But do you know the whole story? It Happened on the Oregon Trail reveals the stories of these well-known events as well as many lesser-known happenings, providing insights about the adventurous emigrants who, beginning in the 1840s, headed west in covered wagons in search of a better life. The hardships and the joys of the 2000-mile journey across plains, mountains, and deserts come alive in this entertaining and informative book.
Download or read book The Old Iron Road written by David Haward Bain and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-09 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 2000 David Haward Bain and his family left their home in Vermont and headed west in search of America’s past. Spiritually, their journey began on a Kansas trail where the author’s grandmother was born in a covered wagon in 1889. Between the Missouri River and the Golden Gate, they retraced the entire route of the first transcontinental railroad and large stretches of the Oregon and California trails, and the equally colorful old Lincoln Highway. Following vanished iron rails and wagon wheel ruts, bumping down backroads and main streets, they discovered the deep, restless, uniquely American spirit of adventure that connects our past to our present. A superb writer and an exacting researcher, Bain conjures up a marvelous sense of coming unstuck in time as he lingers in the ghost towns and battlegrounds, prairies and river ports, trainyards, museums, deserts, and diners that line his cruise west to California. Bain encounters a fascinating cast of characters, both historic and contemporary, as well as memories of his grandparents and the journeys that shaped his own heritage. Writing in the tradition of William Least Heat-Moon and Ian Frazier, and with an engaging warmth and a deep grasp of history all his own, Bain has fashioned a quintessentially American journey.
Download or read book Nebraska Moments written by Donald R. Hickey and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of defining Nebraska moments, including: surviving the Oregon and Mormon trails; completing the Union Pacific Railroad; and winning national football championships, Nobel and Pulitzer prices, and presidential nominations.
Download or read book The Oregon Trail written by David Dary and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major one-volume history of the Oregon Trail from its earliest beginnings to the present, by a prize-winning historian of the American West. Starting with an overview of Oregon Country in the early 1800s, a vast area then the object of international rivalry among Spain, Britain, Russia, and the United States, David Dary gives us the whole sweeping story of those who came to explore, to exploit, and, finally, to settle there. Using diaries, journals, company and expedition reports, and newspaper accounts, David Dary takes us inside the experience of the continuing waves of people who traveled the Oregon Trail or took its cutoffs to Utah, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and California. He introduces us to the fur traders who set up the first “forts” as centers to ply their trade; the missionaries bent on converting the Indians to Christianity; the mountain men and voyageurs who settled down at last in the fertile Willamette Valley; the farmers and their families propelled west by economic bad times in the East; and, of course, the gold-seekers, Pony Express riders, journalists, artists, and entrepreneurs who all added their unique presence to the land they traversed. We meet well-known figures–John Jacob Astor, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, John Frémont, the Donners, and Red Cloud, among others–as well as dozens of little-known men, women, and children who jotted down what they were seeing and feeling in journals, letters, or perhaps even on a rock or a gravestone. Throughout, Dary keeps us informed of developments in the East and their influence on events in the West, among them the building of the transcontinental railroad and the efforts of the far western settlements to become U.S. territories and eventually states. Above all, The Oregon Trail offers a panoramic look at the romance, colorful stories, hardships, and joys of the pioneers who made up this tremendous and historic migration.
Download or read book Go West Young Man written by B.J. Hollars and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-09 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the sound of the bell on the last day of kindergarten, B.J. Hollars and his six-year-old son, Henry, hop in the car to strike out on a 2,500-mile road trip retracing the Oregon Trail. Their mission: to rediscover America, and Americans, along the way. Throughout their two-week adventure, they endure the usual setbacks (car trouble, inclement weather, and father-son fatigue), but their most compelling drama involves people, privilege, and their attempt to find common ground in an all-too-fractured country. Writing in the footsteps of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, Hollars picks up the trail with his son more than half a century later. Together they sidle up to a stool at every truck stop, camp by every creek, and roam the West. They encounter not only the beauty and heartbreak of America, but also the beauty and heartbreak of a father and son eager to make the most of their time together. From Chimney Rock to Independence Rock to the rocky coast of Oregon, they learn and relearn the devastating truth of America’s exploitative past, as well as their role within it. Go West, Young Man recounts the author’s effort to teach his son the difficult realities of our nation’s founding while also reaffirming his faith in America today.
Download or read book The Great Medicine Road Part 3 written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years after the discovery of gold in California, thousands of fortune seekers made their way west, joining the greatest mass migration in American history. The gold fields were only one destination, as emigrants pushed across the Great Plains, Great Basin, and Oregon Territory in unprecedented numbers, following the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails to the verdant Willamette Valley or Mormon settlements in the Salt Lake Valley. “Seeing the Elephant” they often called the journey, referring to the wondrous sights and endless adventures met along the way. The firsthand accounts of those who made the trip between 1850 and 1855 that are collected in this third volume in a four-part series speak of wonders and adventures, but also of disaster and deprivation. Traversing the ever-changing landscape, these pioneers braved flooded rivers, endured cholera and hunger, and had encounters with Indians that were often friendly and sometimes troubled. Rich in detail and diverse in the experiences they relate, these letters, diary excerpts, recollections, and reports capture the voices of women and men of all ages and circumstances, hailing from states far and wide, and heading west in hope and desperation. Their words allow us to see the grit and glory of the American West as it once appeared to those who witnessed its transformation. Michael L. Tate begins the volume with an introduction to this middle phase of the trails’ history. A headnote and annotations for each document sketch the author’s background and reasons for undertaking the trip and correct and clarify information in the original manuscript. The extensive bibliography identifies sources and suggests further reading.
Download or read book Success Depends on the Animals written by Diana L. Ahmad and published by University of Nevada Press. This book was released on 2016-02-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1840 and 1869, thousands of people crossed the American continent looking for a new life in the West. Success Depends on the Animals explores the relationships and encounters that these emigrants had with animals, both wild and domestic, as they traveled the Overland Trail. In the longest migration of people in history, the overlanders were accompanied by thousands of work animals such as horses, oxen, mules, and cattle. These travelers also brought dogs and other companion animals, and along the way confronted unknown wild animals. Ahmad’s study is the first to explore how these emigrants became dependent upon the animals that traveled with them, and how, for some, this dependence influenced a new way of thinking about the human-animal bond. The pioneers learned how to work with the animals and take care of them while on the move. Many had never ridden a horse before, let alone hitched oxen to a wagon. Due to the close working relationship that the emigrants were forced to have with these animals, many befriended the domestic beasts of burden, even attributing human characteristics to them. Drawing on primary sources such as journals, diaries, and newspaper accounts, Ahmad explores how these new experiences influenced fresh ideas about the role of animals in pioneer life. Scholars and students of western history and animal studies will find this a fascinating and distinctive analysis of an understudied topic.
Download or read book The Promise of the West written by Mary Barmeyer O'Brien and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by the promise of prosperity and opportunity on the frontier, thousands of men and women traveled west in the mid-1800s to forge a new life. Accompanying them were their children, wide-eyed and excited about the adventures that awaited them as they headed toward the setting sun. Little did they know how treacherous and grueling the trip would be. The toil and danger of overland travel forced parents to depend on their children to assist in their ultimate survival. Girls were called upon to help cook, set up and break camp, and mind younger siblings. Boys were called upon to help drive the wagons, herd the oxen and horses, assist with wagon repairs, and guard the camp at night. Even with their endless chores, many pioneer boys and girls found time to record the details of their journeys in letters and diaries. This collection of short episodes from the lives of these children on the trail offers fresh perspectives on the experience.
Download or read book Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer Of 1860 written by Mary Ann Hafen and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-12-16 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1860 the author of these recollections, Mary Ann Stucki, then six years old, walked beside her parents' handcart from Florence (Omaha), Nebraska, to Salt Lake City, Utah. The family, converts to Mormonism, had left their comfortable home near Bern, Switzerland, to make the long journey to the Mormon Zion. Nearly eighty years later, Mary Ann Hafen published this account of her life, giving us an unparalleled, candid, inside view of the Mormon woman's world. Called to go with the Swiss company to settle the "Dixieland" region of southern Utah --a hot, dry, inhospitable land--Mary Ann's family lived in thatch, dugout, and adobe houses they built themselves. While still hardly more than a child, Mary Ann cut wheat with a sickle, gleaned cotton fields, made braided straw hats for barter, and spun and dyed cloth for her dresses. Always sustained by her faith in the church, she took part in a millenarian scheme that failed--a communal order--and entered a polygamous marriage, raising almost single-handedly a large family. Mary Ann Hafen has left an authentic, matter-of-fact record of poverty, incredibly hard work, and loss of loved ones, but also of pleasures great and small. It is a unique document of a little-known way of life.
Download or read book The Great Medicine Road written by Kerin Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pages:1 to 25 -- Pages:26 to 50 -- Pages:51 to 75 -- Pages:76 to 100 -- Pages:101 to 125 -- Pages:126 to 150 -- Pages:151 to 175 -- Pages:176 to 200 -- Pages:201 to 225 -- Pages:226 to 250 -- Pages:251 to 275 -- Pages:276 to 300 -- Pages:301 to 313
