The Black West: A Documentary and Pictoral History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States

Book Description

This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs—many never before seen—as well as a revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on our early frontiers.Inspired by a conversation that William Loren Katz had with Langston Hughes, The Black West presents long-neglected stories of daring pioneers such as Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick, Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary, Cranford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill—and a host of other intrepid men and women who marched into the wilderness alongside Chief Osceola, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo.Featuring captivating narratives and photographs (many from the author’s world-famous collection), The Black West enriches and deepens our stirring frontier saga. From slave runaways during the colonial era, to the journeys of Lewis and Clark, to the charge at San Juan Hill, Katz vividly recounts the crucial contributions African Americans made during scores of frontier encounters. With its stirring pictures and vivid eyewitness accounts, The Black West is an exhilarating treasure trove.

Customer Reviews:

The Black West:: A Documentary & Pictoral History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the US.......2007-01-03

This book is great and very informative. It tells how the West was won with the help of African-Americans, the things they had to endure during slavery and after freedom and how they establish productive communities.

Excellent!.......2006-02-04

Just a collection of informative vignettes detailing the Brothers and Sisters contributions to the creation of the Old West. Yet another piece of the historical African puzzle that everyone (but especially Blacks) need to become aware of.

How the West was really won........2006-01-04

THE BLACK WEST is a revised edition of an older book by William Loren Katz. He gives us a definitive history, not only of the Black people who helped settle the West, but also of the machinations of the United States to steal the land from the indigenous people. He includes the brawl with Santa Ana of Mexico regarding Texas as well as the struggle to take California from the Mexicans and the Indians. Katz lets us know that although Blacks were prominent in the settling of the West, they were not welcome additions. Many territories that later became states, passed "black laws" to restrict the entry of Blacks into the territories and to regulate their behavior once they were there. Two such laws were keeping them from voting and preventing them from attending the local schools.

On the plus side, Katz gives the glittering history of the Black cowboys who herded the cattle, tamed the ponies and found gold. He even covers the lawbreakers who rustled cattle and gave Billy the Kid a run for his money in terms of bad behavior. Also there were those Blacks who were not willing to quietly accept the discrimination that they had left the states to avoid. Many of these individuals left a legacy of protest. Two women were told in a bar in Seattle, "We don't serve niggers here." They tore that place up. Then there was the sheriff who falsely arrested a Black Buffalo Soldier in Texas. Not only did his fellow soldiers protest, they ripped open the jail and took their comrade with them.

The heartbreaking side was those Blacks who worked hard and long to buy their freedom. Once they had the money and gave it their owner, their owner would accept the money and then continue to keep them in bondage. Also, when Blacks discovered gold, irate gangs of Whites who wished to steal from them frequently ran them off the claim.

This was an excellent book and in my opinion should be required reading for every school child in America. Katz does not sugar coat history as we've come so used to seeing in regular history books. He tells the good along with the bad. He makes the West come alive with his tales of individual courage as well as covering the ugly racism that has colored this country's history.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers

Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children

Average customer rating:

Great Gift for Parents, New and Old
Poor selection of letters
Personal and Revealing
A Wonderful Display of Humanity
Lovely. Moving, Entertaining Look Inside Families

Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children
Dorie Mccullough Lawson
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Letters & Correspondence | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Rich & Famous | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Women's Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present
Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999
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Letters of a Nation

ASIN: 038550330X
Release Date: 2004-04-13

Book Description

An elegantly designed, beautifully composed volume of personal letters from famous American men and women that celebrates the American Experience and illuminates the rich history of some of America’s most storied families.

Posterity is at once an epistolary chronicle of America and a fascinating glimpse into the hearts and minds of some of history’s most admired figures. Spanning more than three centuries, these letters contain enduring lessons in life and love, character and compassion that will surprise and enlighten.

Included here are letters from Thomas Jefferson to his daughter, warning her of the evils of debt; General Patton on D-Day to his son, a cadet at West Point, about what it means to be a good soldier; W.E.B. DuBois to his daughter about character beneath the color of skin; Oscar Hammerstein about why, after all his success, he doesn’t stop working; Woody Guthrie from a New Jersey asylum to nine-year-old Arlo about universal human frailty; sixty-five-year-old Laura Ingalls Wilder’s train of thought about her pioneer childhood; Eleanor Roosevelt chastising her grown son for his Christmas plans; and Groucho Marx as a dog to his twenty-five-year-old son.

With letters that span more than three centuries of American history, Posterity is a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts, wisdom, and family lives of those whose public accomplishments have touched us all. Here are renowned Americans in their own words and in their own times, seen as they were seen by their children. Here are our great Americans as mothers and fathers.

Customer Reviews:

Great Gift for Parents, New and Old.......2007-03-22

I've stopped giving redundant, briefly used, baby items to new parents. Instead, I buy them Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children. The connection to the commonality of parenthood, that feels so unique and precious to many who've encountered it, resonates throughout this collection. Except for Jack London's contribution, you'll smile as you read most of the letters that editor Dorie Mccullough Lawson has included in this peerless treasury.

Poor selection of letters.......2004-09-21

Although I love books of letters, I found this anthology uninspiring and a poorly chosen group of contributors. The letters rely mostly upon the interest of the reader in the author, not the content of the letter itself. For example: Arlo Guthrie is a neat character, but in his letter to his son, when he tells him to be thankful to God -- why? Sure, It's good advice, and any half-wit can relay it, but the real intellect and insight comes in explaining why someone ought to be thankful to God when they or someone else is suffering. I think a much, much better anthology of letters can be found in Lisa Grunwald and Stephen Adler's "Letters of the Century". It collects hundreds of letters from authors famous and anonymous, and each is tremendously insightful about the emotions of the author, and often makes prescient remarks about the era.

Personal and Revealing.......2004-07-19

This wonderful book spans more than three centuries and gives the reader insights into the thoughts of many great Americans as they wrote to their children.

This treasury of short letters also provides some background for each one. The research needed to discover these personal letters is documented. I love this collection and the way all the letters are presented.

To quote from the author's father, David McCullough, "This is a book to pick up and read at almost any page, a book to keep close at hand, to return to for nourishment and guidance, yes, but also for reassurance and pure pleasure". I couldn't have said it any better! This quotation says exactly how I feel. I want to purchase several copies to give as gifts and as a parent, I even feel compelled to write to my own children!

All the letters provide wonderful insights into the minds of the parents, and I have several favorites; Eleanor Roosevelt wrote one to one of her sons who wanted to skip Christmas and it is so touching! As Dorie M. Lawson reminds us, letter writing is generally a thoughtful art - it cannot compare to e-mail writing.

These personal letters from parent to child are arranged thematically and within each section, they are in chronological order and printed in their entirety just as they were composed. It is thrilling to read them, especially the really old ones and all of them were written by aparent who made worthwhile contributions to America.

Here are a few of the parents whose letters are included: Thomas Jefferson to his daughter Patsy, Harry Truman to his daughter Margaret, General Patton to his son, Oscar Hammerstein to his son, and so many more from all walks of life. All of us who have children and even those who do not, will benefit from reading this rare collection of parents expressing their thoughts.

Thank you Dorie McCullough Lawson and please continue writing!

A Wonderful Display of Humanity.......2004-07-08

To often, we think of historical figures as cardboard characters, names in a textbook. In this wonderful book, they come alive as thinking, feeling human beings, sharing their innermost thoughts with their children. No matter the era, or the fame of the writer, the humanity is what one remembers. Perhaps the greatest tribute I can give Dorie McCullough Lawson is the fact that I have since read, or am reading, biographies of N.C. Wyeth, Theodore Roosevelt, John J. Pershing, and Harriet Beecher Stowe...all because of what I learned about them from her book, and the letters therein. "Posterity..." is a book to treasure.

Lovely. Moving, Entertaining Look Inside Families.......2004-04-30

I'm not a big fan of the genre of letters literature, but this book completely surprised and enthralled me. The obvious hook is the eclectic group of thinkers, from Thomas Edison and Jack London to Moe Howard from the Three Stooges and Woody Guthrie. Each writer reveals a profound love of family, children, sense of humor and warmth that is collectively astonishing and heartbreaking. (...)

Kit Carson: Indian Fighter or Indian Killer?

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Presentism Fails Again

Kit Carson: Indian Fighter or Indian Killer?

Manufacturer: University Press of Colorado
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Presentism Fails Again.......2007-08-30

In the historical profession the term "Presentism" denotes writing a history book or article using the values of the present to judge the events of the past. For instance, apologists for the Confederacy--called neo-Confederates--have attempted to rewrite Civil War history. They attempt to prove--from their modern perspective--that slavery was wrong and had nothing to do with the outbreak of the Civil War because the "noble" leaders of the Confederacy could not have fought for so evil a cause. Much better to claim that they fought for states rights. Similar attitudes damn Presidents Washington and Jefferson for holding slaves despite the fact that abolition was an idea that had barely appeared in the American consciousness of their time. Similarly, other "presentists" damn the whites for taking land from the Indians at a time when taking land from aboriginal inhabitants any where in the world was then the norm. One wonders what sins our generation will be condemned for two or three centuries in the future because we did not have the wisdom to see that far ahead.

In this vein, R.C. Gordon-McCutchan, as editor of "Kit Carson: Indian Fighter or Indian Killer" has collected essays from modern scholars who have done their best to place Carson in his correct time and place. In short these authors have tried to let Carson live by the standards of the mid-19th Century rather than those of the 20th (the book was published in 1996).

Carson lived in a time and place where, since 1607, the Navajo raided first the Spanish, then Mexicans and finally the Americans. During this long period the Navajo also raided the resident Hopi, Pueblo, and Zuni, whose urban-agricultureal life produced a wealth worth stealing. There is some irony in the fact that both the archaeological and historical evidence clearly shows the Navajo were themselves invaders of the area.

The Americans were simply another group to raid as were any other non Navajos of the area. Kit Carson, as a man of the 19th Century, was in reality just carrying on an established pattern, and he did it, according to the research in this book, in a remarkably--for the time-- humane manner. The Navajo rendidtions of his cruelty are mainly, according to this book, legends that were spawned in the 1970 through the 1990s. They were not part of the Navajo opinion of the 1860s,

Timothy R. Roberts Ph.D (Univesity of Missouri 1976)

My Father, Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews With Nathan Boone

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Nathan and Olive Discuss Father Daniel Boone
Boone, From Myth to Reality

My Father, Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews With Nathan Boone
Nathan Boone , Olive Van Bibber Boone , and Lyman Copeland Draper
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Daniel Boone: His Own Story
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ASIN: 0813121035

Customer Reviews:

Nathan and Olive Discuss Father Daniel Boone.......2003-06-24

Nathan Boone and his wife, Olive van Bibber Boone, had the kind of memories most people wish for. They remembered virtually all of the early history of Commonwealth of Kentucky. When Lyman Draper came to visit them for two months in 1851 he found them full of the most interesting and detailed memories of Daniel Boone. Not only had the elder Boone lived with them and shared his own memories, they had also lived through many of the incidents themselves, and knew many of the old pioneers -- old van Bibber was one of the earliest settlers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Enjoyable, highly readable. I highly recommend this book.

Boone, From Myth to Reality.......2000-09-06

The Draper Interviews provide insight into the life of Boone, free of the myth and larger than life stereotype that has always surrounded this remarkable frontiersman. Nathan Boone's recollections of his father also gives us a glimpse of how Daniel himself viewed the world in which he lived and allows us to more clearly understand the man from which the legend sprung. Though many books written from similiar interviews are dull and rather boring, the Draper Interviews are arranged so that they make for rather stimulating reading and keep the reader eagerly in longing for the next chapter. Truly a "must read" for anyone interested in Daniel Boone or early Kentucky history.

Covered Wagon Women, Volume 1: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849 (Covered Wagon Women)

Average customer rating:

Great Read. Not a Great Subject Introduction - a review of Vol. I "Covered Wagon Women"
Great Stories of the Overland Trails
Esteemed
Like Going Back in Time
Marvelous Compilation of Frontier Womens' Experiences

Covered Wagon Women, Volume 1: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849 (Covered Wagon Women)

Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Pioneer Women
Covered Wagon Women, Volume 2: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850 (Coverd Wagon Women)
Covered Wagon Women 3: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails 1851 (Covered Wagon Women Vol. 3)
Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier
Letters of a Woman Homesteader

ASIN: 0803272774

Book Description

The women who traveled west in covered wagons during the 1840s speak through these letters and diaries. Here are the voices of Tamsen Donner and young Virginia Reed, members of the ill-fated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and Salt Lake City; Rachel Fisher, who buried both her husband and her little girl before reaching Oregon. Still others make themselves heard, starting out from different places and recording details along the way, from the mundane to the soul-shattering and spirit-lifting.

Customer Reviews:

Great Read. Not a Great Subject Introduction - a review of Vol. I "Covered Wagon Women".......2007-05-26

After reading Lillian Schlissel's excellent book "Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey" I was stricken by the 'curiosity bug' and NEEDED to read more. I turned therefore to Mr. Holmes, a recognized name in this field.

His series, "Covered Wagon Women", currently consists of 11 volumes, although this review is just about the first book. Volume One consists of entries from the very first period of westward migration: 1840 to 1849. The authors are women who write of their experiences in a way that reflects both their ages and educational levels -- and it is fascinating.

For example, from Keturah Belknap we discover how families prepared for the 8 month trip. She tells of difficult goodbye's to family and friends; how she spun wool so that she could have a friend weave it 'just-so' to make good solid wagon covers; and even how she and her husband packed their wagons. And from many of the journals we find out how absolutely difficult it was to cross the mountains. How in snow and rain they had to ratchet the wagons up by hoists and chains to get over huge boulders, and then lower them down the steep declines with breaks on the rear wheels. There are also the sad records left by the Donner party participants, and those that witnessed the drownings and accidents along the way.

To his merit, Mr. Holmes has left these records pretty much alone. He has not changed the writers creative spelling nor punctuation, except to provide [spaces] where the sentences are run on and the meaning consequently obscured.

In addition to the original writings, Mr. Holmes provides background information for each diarist, and footnotes throughout. While I found the footnotes interesting and informative, the introductory material dealt almost exclusively with with genealogy (rather than historical backdrop) and so was not of much assistance to me in trying to understand the emigrant's experience.

Here are the Chapter headings:

Editor's Introduction
Across the Plains in 1845, by Betsy Bayley
A Letter from the Luckiamute Valley, by Anna Maria King
A Brimfield Heroine, by Tabitha Brown
The Donner Party letters [note: by Tamsen Donner and Virginia Reed]
Two letters of Phoebe Stanton
Letters from a Quaker Woman: Rachel Fisher
The Diary of Elizabeth Dixon Smith
A Pioneer Mormon Diary: Patty Sessions
The Commentaries of Keturah Belknap
The Diary of a Pioneer Girl, by Sallie Hester
A Letter from California, by Louisiana Strentzel
Running a Boarding House in the Mines

Four Stars [B-]. The diaries and letters published here are valuable historical records that thankfully have not been tampered with: the reader gets the full flavor of the writers. There is one map showing the routes, but almost no pictures of the women involved. And annoyingly there is NO Bibliography in this volume, with sole exception of the one provided for the one Mormon entry. Sources are listed throughout.

If you are a newbie (like myself) interested in this timeframe and in written records of women, I would suggest you read up on the period first, or concurrently, before beginning this series. Personally, I would not have gotten as much enjoyment out of this book if I had not read Lillian Schlissel's book first.

Lillian Schlissel's book "Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey": Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey

Great Stories of the Overland Trails.......2004-04-14

The study of women's history has blossomed during the past several decades, and the result has been the production of several outstanding works on the subject. "Covered Wagon Women" is an important contribution to this growing field of investigation. It is a useful work that makes available to historian and buff alike several fascinating letters and diaries written by women involved in the westward movement of the 1840s. The editor, Kenneth L. Holmes and the publisher have undertaken an ambitious project, and, this work, and others in this series, represent a benchmark in this field's historiography.

The material presented in this first volume has been arranged by the editor into twelve chapters with entries by fourteen women. These accounts are representative rather than exhaustive. However, there are important documents discussing the experiences of several intelligent and articulate women on the Oregon, California, Santa Fe, and Mormon trails. The editor chose his documents well. They are all primary resources, written at the time of the incidents described or immediately thereafter. More important, Holmes did not reprint commonly used diaries. I was pleasantly surprised that Susan Magoffin's diary of her trip to Santa Fe in 1846 was not included in the collection. It is an outstanding diary but readily available elsewhere. Instead, Holmes scoured the nation's archives and libraries, and solicited copies of documents from individuals, to assemble what should be considered an exemplary collection of manuscripts.

Holmes's editorial work is also outstanding. He allows the individual writers to tell their own story without correcting grammar, punctuation, and syntax. He adds, moreover, useful annotations providing additional background information about key personalities and events without overediting, certainly no easy task judging from the number of edited works that suffer from this defect.

The editor gives considerable attention to Mormon women during the westward trek to Utah. Holmes includes as a major piece within the collection a diary of Patty Bartlett Sessions, dated June 21, 1847, through September 26, 1847. The original, located in the Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has been well used by scholars investigating the Mormon trek to Utah, the role of women in the Church and in western history, and the development of medical treatment, but its publication for a wider audience is most welcome.

While "Covered Wagon Women" is a fine book of lasting historical value, it could have been made better with additional work. For instance, the editor chose to omit both a bibliography and an index, opting for the issuance of a cumulative bibliography and index in the tenth volume of the series. This decision will, of course, make the volume less usable by researchers in the interim. Additionally, Holmes is inconsistent in his editorial work. He is at his best in his treatment of the diary of Patty Sessions. First, it has an excellent introduction that draws heavily upon the research of such leaders in the study of Mormon women on the frontier as Leonard J. Arrington and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher. Second, it includes a useful dramatis personae, briefly describing characters mentioned in the diary. Finally, Holmes attaches a solid bibliography pointing the direction for further study. In contrast, Holmes's editing of other diaries and letters possesses nothing approaching the depth of scholarship he demonstrates in his work on Sessions. Most other entries contain only a cursory introduction, and none has either a description of characters or bibliography. It would have been commendable had Holmes been able to bring to the other accounts in this volume the fine editorial work he displays in his work on the Sessions diary.

In spite of these shortcomings, Kenneth Holmes has compiled a well-balanced, enjoyable book that should be of interest to all readers concerned with the study of women, the frontier movement, the overland trail, and Mormonism. This type of documentary history, although until recent years considered somewhat esoteric, should be encouraged, for it can open entirely new avenues of investigation when handled by skilled historians.

Esteemed.......2003-11-07

Authentic, bold and openhearted accounts from 1840's emigrant women. Historians and the general reader should be so fortunate that these noble women took the time out of their busy, hectic days to write letters and diaries of their westward travels. Secondly, we should also be grateful that these narratives have survived for us future readers to somewhat comprehend their stamina, perserverence and gutsy character.
Heartfelt accounts of river fordings, lack of food and/or water for livestock and people, Indian misconducts, wagon breakdowns, disease and death of loved ones, vivid landscape and countryside descriptions and the numerous day to day occurences for survival. To mention a few of the dozen writings:
Betsey Bayley and Anna Marie King's accounts of the perilous 1845 Stephen Meek Cutoff.
Tabitha Brown's 1846 account of emigration along the Applegate Cutoff.
Letters from Tamsen Donner and thirteen year old Virginia Reed's trip with the horrific Donner Party of 1846.
Patty Sessions who drove her own wagon to Salt Lake in 1847 and delivered several babies along the way (midwifed nearly 4,000 deliveries in her lifetime).
Rachel Fisher's travels in 1847 who lost her husband and a child during the emigration.
Elizabeth Dixon Smith's party of 1847 that lost several emigrants during their journey.
Editing by Dr. Holmes is second to none.

Like Going Back in Time.......2002-12-15

I have read all 11 books in this series over and over, and I would recomend them all. It is like looking over the shoulder of the rugged pioneer women as they took time, almost every day, to document what would probably be the most important event in their lives. Tired,wet, and sometimes hungry, they brought stability to the west. I have also traveled and seen many sights that still remain as evidence of the Oregon Trail. We can't travel back in time, but this is the next best thing!

Marvelous Compilation of Frontier Womens' Experiences.......2002-03-24

I got this book yesterday in the mail and it is already read. This book takes letters, diaries and other correspondence of women who shaped the frontier and gives the reader an insight into the hardships that their families faced making the long western crossing to the hope of a better future in Oregon and California.
The author has tapped many sources in libraries all across the west to get this information together. He makes a point in the introduction that this is information compiled nowhere else. He deals with lesser known narratives except he does include a journal from Virginia Reed a child travelling with the Donner Party and Tabitha Brown one of the top 10 figures in shaping Oregon history.
Very informative and educational! Can't wait to start the next book in the series.

Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 18151848

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Immigrants and Incumbents

Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 18151848

Manufacturer: Heyday Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Hispanic & Latino | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

History | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846 (California Legacy Book) (California Legacy Book)
The History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California
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Life in a California Mission: Monterey in 1786 : The Journals of Jean Francois De LA Perouse
The Anza Trail and the Settling of California

ASIN: 1597140333

Book Description

When famed historian Hubert Howe Bancroft sent Thomas Savage, Henry Cerruti, and Vicente Perfecto Gómez out to gather the oral histories of the pre-American gentry of the new state of California, he didn't count on one thing: the women. When the men weren't available, Savage, Cerruti, and Gómez collected the stories of the women of the household, almost as an afterthought: these were archived at the University of California; some were never even translated into English…until now.

From the editors of the highly influential Lands of Promise and Despair, here are thirteen women's first-hand accounts from when California was part of Spain and Mexico. They lived through the gold rush and saw their country change so drastically, they understood the need to tell the full story of their people and the place that was California.

As a diverse group, these women represent a side of California history never before fully considered. In their testimonios, their strong voices tell an intimate, engaging, and important story.

Customer Reviews:

Immigrants and Incumbents.......2007-02-10

I wrote this review specifically for a collection of newspapers published in the Salinas Valley, but I think
it's more broadly understandable. Hope you do.

California: Land of Immigrants who Quickly Become Incumbents

Testimonios is an interpreted collection of interviews with thirteen women, primarily Spaniards, who spoke with researchers employed by Hubert Howe Bancroft as he prepared to write his seven-volume History of California. These women were most often second-generation Californios - the daughters of families who came with the expeditions lead by Portola or Anza. Several of the women are from the greater Salinas Valley area and one, Maria Antonia Rodriguez Soberanes, is an ancestor in what my family calls "the Soledad Soberaneses." Maria is great-great-great grandmother to Paul Binsacca, Craig Bianchi, Dana Bianchi, Nicola Bianchi, Kathryn Bianchi, Mary Tadman, Sarah Sarmento, Steven Terry, Jana Martinez, Kerry King, and me. I am sure there are many other Salinas Valley residents who can trace their lineage to her as well.

And so what might we learn from my 3-great grandmother? One of twelve children, she bore fourteen children. Born in 1795, she married Feliciano Soberanes in 1810 and she died in 1883. In 1818, while living in Monterey, Maria remembers the appearance of a pirate ship. Women and children were dispatched to ranchos away from Monterey and the pirate Bouchard burned and sacked the city. By order of the Spanish governor of Alta California, munitions at Monterey's Presidio were destroyed rather than given over to Bouchard. At least for one cold, long night, Maria slept beneath a wagon with very little to keep her warm.

Maria's recollection of the early economy of the Salinas Valley is fascinating. Tidelands with lagoons of salt water were claimed by the Spanish crown and soldiers protected the salt when it dehydrated and began to set. This salt was taken in sacks to the royal treasury in Monterey and then sold to Spaniards for use on their ranchos. These cattle ranches needed salt licks for the animals and salt to cure the meat. Thus, the Spanish government was able to tax the cattle industry, with salt being the currency of the day. The city of Salinas and the Salinas Valley take their name from the Spanish term for salt.

Perhaps the most thought-provoking information shared by Maria, which is amplified by other women's testimonios, is a unique perspective on what I will call immigrants and incumbents. Feliciano and Maria are first-generation Californios and their parents arrived in our Salinas Valley in 1769 when the incumbents were Native American peoples. Within two generations, the Spaniards displaced the incumbents, cast off their status as immigrants, and populated large tracts of the valley. When Mexico pushed Spain out of its country, a Mexican army marched through Alta California to take the reins. No sooner than that political transition ended, Col. Fremont and the Americans arrived to drive Mexican rule south to our current border. Maria saw all four of these phases. She saw the Mexicans begin to secularize the California Missions to reduce the authority of the Catholic Church, and she watched the large ranchos held by the Spaniards given over to American settlers. King City and Soledad were once part of a Soberanes family land grant, for example.

About the American phase Maria said, stoically, "It is a law of nature that the poor shall steal from the rich. We Californians in 1846 owned every inch of soil in this country and our conquerors took away from us the greater part. The same thing has happened, I suppose, over and over again in any conquered nation..." These are certainly the words of an incumbent, not an immigrant.

California does seem to have a propensity to create incumbents just in time for the next wave of immigrants. And it's not always about ethnicity. John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath captures the collision of American immigrants from the Dust Bowl with California incumbents. Maria may well be on the right track - migration trends are about the redistribution of wealth and the motives and actions that are driven by poverty.

I commend the editors Beebe and Senkewicz for providing enough context for readers who are not California historians. And, the editors include material about the interviewers and the information-gathering process, which makes the book interesting at another level. The 470 page book is a treasure chest for anyone interested in California history in general and activities in the Salinas Valley in particular.

Cherokee Outlet Cowboy: Recollections of Laban S. Records

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Life of a cowboy

Cherokee Outlet Cowboy: Recollections of Laban S. Records
Laban Samuel Records
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Life of a cowboy.......2005-12-23

Very late in his life Laban Records decided to sit down and put to paper his recollections of his days as a Kansas cowboy some fifty years earlier. When he was done he had compiled about a thousand handwritten notebook pages of material that was then passed down through his family. Laban's son saw that parts of it were published in the "Chronicles of Oklahoma," but it wasn't until his granddaughter, Ellen Wheeler, presented the entire original manuscript to the Oklahoma Historical Society that the book (this book) was published; Ms. Wheeler also did the editing.

The memoir begins with the 14-year-old Records moving to Kansas with his family from Indiana; his father was a Methodist minister. He got a job bullwhacking and driving freight in SE Kansas, and from there went on to work as a cowboy on a number of ranches. The book recounts his experiences on cattle drives, in the bunkhouses, with other cowboys, and of course with the Indians (he survived a raid by Dull Knife). There is nothing exceptional about most of this, but it gives a good feel for the routine life of a cowboy. And Wheeler's annotations are very thorough and helpful. One complaint: Records refers to the ranches in the book by their brands, so a table of brands would have been useful. In 1892 he staked a claim in the Indian territory of Oklahoma and settled there with his wife, where they lived and ranched for the next 48 years. As cowboy reminiscences go, this book is quite good of its kind.

Faith and Betrayal: A Pioneer Woman's Passage in the American West

Average customer rating:

could have been good
Faith and Betrayal
Facinating and informative
I Feel Cheated
That Pioneer Spirit

Faith and Betrayal: A Pioneer Woman's Passage in the American West
Sally Denton
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857
Passion and Principle: John and Jessie Fremont, the Couple Whose Power, Politics, and Love Shaped Nineteenth-Century Americ
Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820-1880
Breaking Clean
Western Women's Lives: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century (Histories of the American Frontier)

ASIN: 1400034736
Release Date: 2006-07-11

Book Description

In the 1850s, Jean Rio, a deeply spiritual widow, was moved by the promises of Mormon missionaries and set out from England for Utah. Traveling across the Atlantic by steamer, up the Mississippi by riverboat, and westward by wagon, Rio kept a detailed diary of her extraordinary journey.

In Faith and Betrayal, Sally Denton, an award-winning journalist and Rio’s great-great-granddaughter, uses the long-lost diary to re-create Rio’s experience. While she marvels at the great natural beauty of Utah, Rio’s enthusiasm for her new life turns to disillusionment over Mormon polygamy and violence against nonbelievers, as well as the harshness of frontier life. She sets out for California, where she finds a new religion and the freedom she longed for. Unusually intimate and full of vivid detail, this is an absorbing story of a quintessential American pioneer.

Customer Reviews:

could have been good.......2007-08-23

As the PW review states, the book is riddled with factual errors--large and small. It is also full of the author's anti-religious and anti-Mormon prejudice; events and people are always cast in the dimmest light (except the author's own ancestor and family) and Denton seems unable to imagine a religious worldview. I would have like more direct quoting from Jean Rio Baker's journals and a more dispassionate point of view that accounted for the reason people of the 19th century were so compelled to leave their home countries to emigrate to Utah and take part in what Mormonism seemed to promise. I bought this book to get a sense--from Jean Rio Baker--of who she was and why she converted to Mormonism, but the factual errors and value judgments cloud the book's credibility so much that it did not really address those issues.

Faith and Betrayal.......2007-06-07

I was so glad to be able to read this book. I have a Great grandmother who was put on a ship at the age of 13 from Denmark, sent to the Mormans all alone, no other family member came. Her mother and father divorced in Denmark, over this desire of my great grandmother's mother to join the Mormans, she herself never came to America. This left my Great Grandmother to fend for herself. I had never been able to understand how this could possibly have happened, until I read this account. Like Jean Rio, she came to dispise the Morman Faith and her descendents in general refered to themselves as "Jack Mormans".

Facinating and informative.......2006-11-10

I was totally captivated with the life of this lady who left her wealthy & comfortable home in England to join up with the Mormon's. That is after they paint a rosy picture of their "Promised Land in Utah Territory". But they certainly failed to mention a few minor things that would take place.

I was raised a Mormon and left it over 35 years ago to become a Bible believing Christian. I was certainly never taught what really happened in the early formative years and this book brings out the true events.

I always wondered how the church could grow as it did and this book explains all of that. It brings out the perverted cult it really was and the hardships put upon this woman after joining. She was never told she would have to give all her possessions & money. Brigham Young lived quite well from the funds given in Utah, while the others lived in stark poverty. They never told the people in England before they left for the new world of the polygamy, poverty, communal living etc... & so much more.

Sally tells the story well, between the entries in the journal & without animosity as she certainly could.

This was a fascinating work and after reading this book I will read the book Sally Denton wrote on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. She has done her homework in the background and setting of this book and I am sure she will do well in the next one.

I Feel Cheated.......2005-09-23

I was anticipating a wonderful diary of an amazing journey by an Englishwoman of privilege over the Western Plains of the American West--what I got was a narrative history of the Mormon religion and its ups and downs. Having read many diaries of Pioneer women, this one attracted me because Jean Rio started out in England with a small fortune at her disposal. I was disappointed that so much of the book was wasted on Brigham Young and so little of it on Jean.

That Pioneer Spirit.......2005-07-13

Jean Rio, Mormon convert, traveled from England with a large group of people to settle in the barren land of "Deseret", which is now modern day Utah. Fed by her faith, her ultimate belief that she was right in her convictions, and a determined spirit, Jean not only survived this perilous journey, but helped others survive it along the way. Sally Denton, Jean's great great granddaughter, recounts her relatives momnumental journey in the small and quiet book, "Faith and Betrayal".

Using Jean Rio's diary as a record of account in this book, Denton reconstructs the history of her family, and the decision of Jean Rio to leave her life of priviledge in England to the great unknown. Starting off in luxury, Jean converts to Mormonism and decides her faith should bring her to America and Utah, as one of those brave pioneers. The rest of the story recounts Jean's life in Utah, her disillusionment with Mormonism, and her eventual resettling to California.

Jean's trek across the United States would earn my five stars by itself. Denton's reconstruction of the journey of Jean and her entourage is compelling and amazing. I long since knew about the travels of Mormon pioneers, but never has the perilous journey been so wonderfully reconstructed. It was amazing to read of Jean's growth during the trip, finding skills she never knew she had. This is one pioneer woman who deserves her story to be told.

Much has been and will be said about Denton's view on Mormonism, and her "obvioius bias" and several will discount her story by their "factual errors". Any book written that dares suggest that a religion, such as Mormonism, has faults, is bound to be attacked. It is almost tiresome that it happens, but alas, it is. At least Denton has said her peace, and has shared it in a wonderful book.

I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants a intrguing story about a woman who had the courage to follow her convictions, and live her life based on her beliefs.

Average customer rating:

From Smoke & Fire News: A Unique Volume on Daniel Boone
Most Excellent! "The Life of Daniel Boone"
Simply put, one of the best!
To In depth for the most part
Draper MS best source of Boone's Life

The Life of Daniel Boone
Lyman Copeland Draper
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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My Father, Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews With Nathan Boone
Daniel Boone: His Own Story
The Hunters of Kentucky: A Narrative History of America's First Far West, 1750-1792
Daniel Boone: An American Life
Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (An Owl Book)

ASIN: 0811709795

Customer Reviews:

From Smoke & Fire News: A Unique Volume on Daniel Boone.......2004-12-16

Occasionally a book that has been available for a while deserves another look just because of its intrinsic value. In 1998 a book was published that combined the names of two legendary individuals who will be associated forever with the history of the American backwoods-Daniel Boone, the famous adventurer, and Lyman C. Draper, the renowned nineteenth-century interviewer and collector. It was only through the painstaking efforts of editor Ted Franklin Belue that Draper's highly significant tome on Boone finally came into being a century and a half after it was started. Before the ink was dry on the printed page, this book had become a backcountry classic. It instantly went to the front rank of Boone biographies. For the previous hundred years few but the serious historian had been drawing from Draper's handwritten manuscript on Boone; now even the casual reader would have the material readily available in print. Despite the fact that Draper never finished writing the biography and didn't take Boone's exploits beyond 1778, The Life of Daniel Boone (596 pages hardcover, $39.95, Stackpole Books) has proven to be well worth the long wait.
The book is a treasure trove of information about Boone, including such highlights as: his early years in Pennsylvania and North Carolina; activities during the French and Indian War; hunting in the Appalachian region; long hunting in Kentucky; adventures in Dunmore's War; the establishment of Boonesborough; and the first half of the Revolutionary War in Kentucky. While perusing these pages, the reader will be reminded constantly of Draper's monumental research that involved extensive travel to obtain interviews with people who had known Boone personally or with relatives and friends of such individuals. He also endeavored to collect important documents before they disappeared. His efforts were literally a race against time. Belue sets a standard for excellence with his very interesting preface as well as his editor's note (following the preface) that explains how the book finally came into being. The outstanding notes at the end of each chapter by both Draper and Belue are a further wealth of information. Draper's 44-page appendix provides a Boone genealogy and biographical sketches of many other frontier figures.
From Smoke & Fire News, November 2004, by Bob Holden

Most Excellent! "The Life of Daniel Boone".......2004-04-24

I have to say this book is just wonderful! It is great as a casual read as well as excellent for the researcher and/or family historian! It helped me to fill some gaps in my families history (Daniel's sister, Sarah Boone) and gave other avenues in which to reasearch.

Simply put, one of the best!.......2003-12-24

This is the one to get. This one, and John Mack Faragher's BOONE biography (Henry Holt, 1992). Anything by Belue is worth getting; he is precise to the point of obsession, and his works--four thus far--will stand the test of time.

To In depth for the most part.......2003-06-27

Wanted to read this book as a celebration of Daniels life Yet I found it to be long statements made directly following his death It is told that none ventured into writing of this man during his life I guess that makes it appealing The man had big family and was known to beat the Indians at there own gam that I found Admirable the book on a whole was simply a bore due to the accounts of how Boone tryed to purchase this or that But to those who want to build homesteads in the 1800s It will be to your liking

Draper MS best source of Boone's Life.......2003-06-24

Lyman Draper wrote the single best account of the life of Daniel Boone. This source, while not well known, has been mined by virtually every biographer of Boone since 1850. This book and the biography of John Bakeless are the best two volumes ever to appear about the life of Daniel Boone. Also the Memoirs of Nathan Boone and his wife are of extreme value. These books provide the basis for the study of early Kentucky history.

Covered Wagon Women 5: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1852 : The Oregon Trail (Covered Wagon Women)

Average customer rating:

Stirring sunbonnet narratives

Covered Wagon Women 5: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1852 : The Oregon Trail (Covered Wagon Women)

Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Covered Wagon Women 3: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails 1851 (Covered Wagon Women Vol. 3)
Covered Wagon Women 4: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails 1852 : The California Trail (Covered Wagon Women Vol. 4)
Covered Wagon Women, Volume 2: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850 (Coverd Wagon Women)
Covered Wagon Women, Volume 1: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849 (Covered Wagon Women)
Covered Wagon Women 6: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails 1853-1854 (Covered Wagon Women)

ASIN: 0803272944

Book Description

Abigail Jane Scott was seventeen when she left Illinois with her family in the spring of 1852. Her record of the journey west is full of expressive detail: breakfasting in a snowstorm, walking behind the wagons to keep warm, tasting buffalo meat, trying to climb Independence Rock. She meets her future husband, Benjamin Duniway, at the end of the Oregon Trail and, in the years to come, finds fame as a writer and a leader of the suffrage movement in the Northwest. Her grandson, David Duniway, edited her trail diary for Covered Wagon Women.

This volume includes the equally vivid diaries of other women who rode the wagons in 1852. Polly Coon of Wisconsin recalls trading with the Indians. Martha Read, starting from Illinois, is particularly alert to the suffering of the animals, noting hundreds of dead cows and horses along the way. Cecilia Adams and Parthenia Blank, twin sisters from Illinois, jointly chronicle their once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Customer Reviews:

Stirring sunbonnet narratives.......2003-11-19

Once again, these diaries and letters of the "Covered Wagon Women" series detail the extraordinary stamina of early day pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail.
The year 1852 not only had the heaviest trail traffic westward, but it was also rife with hundreds of human cholera deaths. As Parthenia Blank solemnly relates, "it makes it seem very gloomy to us to see so many of the emigrants buried on the plains". At the end of her journey, Martha Read had counted 750 graves, "but I suppose that a small part, for there were so many campt off from the road and buried their dead".
Life on the trail also took its toll on livestock. Martha Read further notes the tally of "600 dead cattle and 50 horses" from "hollow horn"(anthrax), alkali water, poisonous plants, "want of good care", little food, lack of foot care, etc.
Even in the early stages while crossing the Iowa River, Polly Coon is quoted as saying, "What a brittle thread has life and how uncertain that another moment is ours" after witnessing three men drowning during the river fording.
Seventeen year old Abigail Jane Scott's lengthy diary is complete not only of daily routines, observations of the countryside and the many hardships associated with trail life, but also the vivid and harrowing descriptions of the deaths of her mother and brother during the journey. She further says, "If it wasn't for hope, the heart would fail".
Editing by Dr. Kenneth Holmes and David Duniway brilliant. Introduction by Dr. Ruth Moynihan excellent.

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