Native American West

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness.

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.

Dee Brown's eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the 19th century uses council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions. Brown allows great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated.

One man finds himself torn between two cultures in this sweeping tale of frontier life in post–Civil War era Texas. In the years following the American War Between the States, the once vacated military presence in west Texas is on the rise to protect the waves of settlers moving into the region. Living peaceably with the Mescalero Apache, half-breed former military scout Holton Lang promotes the tentative harmony between the US cavalry and the Native American population.

A rousing and meticulously researched account of the notorious Battle of Little Big Horn and its unforgettable cast of characters from Sitting Bull to Custer himself.

In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame - and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East.

The year 1865. Goldie O’Neill was nine years of age when she trekked across the unclaimed American West with her family to form their own Irish Catholic colony. Their new community had dreams of self-governance and prosperity far removed from the anti-Irish sentiment and prejudice of the ruling classes. They soon learned about the extremes of the American West and the ongoing Indian war. A year after their arrival, Goldie blames herself for her sister’s disappearance.

In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head-on into the mysteries of this vanished people. The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day", a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace.

With a bit of insight into the Native American culture, paired with a larger understanding of how the settlers of the west actually lived, you'll be able to decipher what happened to the Oatman family of your own accord, empowering an honest understanding of this history. In The Captivity of the Oatman Girls, you’ll discover powerful insight into the truth of the relations between the settlers and the Plains Indians of North America, why the actions of the colonists in the late 18th century bordered genocide - and how this shifted the landscape forever, and more.

How far would you go to protect a loved one? Would you tamper with evidence? Commit arson? Allow a prime suspect to remain at large? Pegasus Quincy and her former partner, Shepherd Malone, have some difficult choices ahead when Shep’s daughter is caught with a murder weapon in her hand. It doesn’t help when the detective on the case has problems of his own. When he applies to the sheriff’s department, he conveniently forgets to mention that he was terminated from his previous position under a cloud of fraud.

The year is 1870, and Fool's Crow, so called after he killed the chief of the Crows during a raid, has a vision at the annual Sun Dance ceremony. The young warrior sees the end of the Indian way of life and the choice that must be made: resistance or humiliating accommodation.

Riding with Cochise brings the violent drama of the American Southwest to life through the eyes of the legendary Apache chieftain Cochise and three other tribal leaders. Relying largely on the oral histories told by relatives of these great warriors as well as personal diaries of others who were involved, veteran author Steve Price takes listeners deep into the Cochise Stronghold, through Massacre Canyon, and across Apache Pass.

His name was Geronimo. And any mention of that name immediately conjures up images of the last gasp of Native American control of the Western Frontier. Geronimo, to be sure, was one of the most effective leaders in the resistance against America’s westward advance, but he was much more than just a good field commander for the Apaches. For even after the West was supposedly won, Geronimo proved more than ready to adapt. In this book, you will get the full picture of Geronimo: the good, the bad, and the downright incredible.

From one of the bestselling western novelists of all time, comes another classic story. Templeton Lambeth had so desperately wanted a son - an heir to ride by his side through the vast, wild ranges just west of the Pecos River. But to his disappointment, his wife bore a girl. His hopes crushed and in denial, he decides to raise his daughter as if she were a boy. In honor of Lambeth's more successful brother, they named her: Terrill.

Hot-blooded Georgiana Stockwell will break a man's heart while he's eating out of her hand. Moving from the East to join her schoolteacher sister in the rugged wilds of Tonto Basin, Arizona, Georgiana makes quite an impression. Despite her sister's best efforts, Georgiana creates a culture clash as her modern, free-spirited personality comes up against the code of the West, the unwritten law of the range that everyone is expected to follow.

Oak Flat is a serene high-elevation mesa that sits above the Southeastern Arizona desert, 15 miles to the west of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. For the San Carlos tribe, Oak Flat is a holy place, an ancient burial ground and religious site where Apache girls celebrate the coming-of-age ritual known as the Sunrise Ceremony. In 1995, a massive untapped copper reserve was discovered nearby.

American Indians remain familiar as icons, yet poorly understood as historical agents. In this ambitious book that ranges across Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and eastern California (a region known as the Great Basin), Ned Blackhawk places Native peoples squarely at the center of a dynamic and complex story as he chronicles two centuries of Indian and imperial history that profoundly shaped the American West.

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness.

The dramatic and tragic story of the only successful Native American uprising against the Spanish, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

The Osage, Kansa, and Otoe were all tribes west of the Mississippi and dwelt directly in the path of the two friends determined to escape the bounty hunters from Philadelphia and to explore the uncharted wilderness of the West. But when they encounter former French Voyageurs turned slave traders who take Pawnee women captive, their purposes take a turn. But slave-traders are nothing compared to the Omaha and Ponca tribes that have the market cornered on all trade from the Missouri and North Platte Rivers.