The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890 (Histories of the American frontier) [Hardcover]

Robert M. Utley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1984

First published in 1984, Robert Utley's The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890, is considered a classic for both students and scholars. For this revision, Utley includes scholarship and research that has become available in recent years.

What they said about the first edition:

"[The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890] provides an excellent synthesis of Indian-white relations in the trans-Mississippi West during the last half-century of the frontier period."--Journal of American History

"The Indian Frontier of the American West combines good writing, solid research, and penetrating interpretations. The result is a fresh and welcome study that departs from the soldier-chases-Indian approach that is all too typical of other books on the topic."--Minnesota History

"[Robert M. Utley] has carefully eschewed sensationalism and glib oversimplification in favor of critical appraisal, and his firm command of some of the best published research of others provides a solid foundation for his basic argument that Indian hostility in the half century following the Mexican War was directed less at the white man per se than at the hated reservation system itself."--Pacific Historical Review

Choice Magazine Outstanding Selection

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

First published in 1984, Robert Utley’s The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846–1890, is considered a classic for both students and scholars. For this revision, Utley includes scholarship and research that has become available in recent years. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

First published in 1984, Robert Utley's The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846-1890 is considered a classic for both students and scholars. For this revision, Utley includes scholarship and research that has become available in recent years. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press; 1st edition (1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826307159
• ISBN-13: 978-0826307156
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #621,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More Facts Than Story, July 30, 2000

By 

Wayne A. Smith (Newark, DE) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890 (Histories of the American Frontier) (Paperback)

Utley's The Indian Frontier of the American West presents a brief overview of America's clash with the frontier indian culture over a fifty year period. What is a fascinating story unfortunately disappoints in Mr. Utley's hands.

The information relating to scores of major tribes during several decades of relationship with the US involves a large cast. This book presents the briefest of sketches relating to conflicts, treaty negotiations and battles. Characters pop into the book and disappear just as quickly. The middle of the book provides a chronological accounting of the two decades after the Civil War, and that is where it has its difficulty. Perhaps this is just too thin a book to cover such a broad expanse. What is presented in this middle is a recitation of vignettes, persons and events, none presented in enough detail to grip the reader or provide any meaningful flavor to this narrative.

The author has more luck in his chapters that are not chronological. They book-end the story. A brief on how American indian policy arrived to mid century (1800's) and two at the end on the Indian reform movement and the closing of the frontier are much more tightly written and interesting.

I think the author just tried to accomplish too much and ended up with a broad brush stroke of what should be a fascinating story. The material reads like a school text book, facts are presented rather than a story told. This makes for dry reading at times.

Overall, this is a passable book for anyone wanting to get an overview of Plains Indian history. For those wanting a fascinating story, they may want to check out Connell's Son of the Morning Star.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing Narrative on the Indian-White Man Conflict`, June 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890 (Histories of the American Frontier) (Paperback)

This book is written largely from the perspective of the Indians of the American West but Utley does a good job of including insight into why the white man acted the way they did. His conclusion at the end of the book is "Given who these people were (the whites), what they knew, and what they believed, it is difficult to see how they might have behaved differently enough to have brought about a result that would be acceptable today". What struck me throughout the book was how often agreements that were made with the indians were ignored, violated, and broken. The book is well written and easy to read. If you want a good overview of the American West from 1846-1890, this is a must read.

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to the history of the Indian wars in the 1800s, August 9, 2010

By 

Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Indian Frontier 1846-1890 (Histories of the American Frontier.) (Paperback)

Robert Utley was long a leading historian for the National Park Service, making major contributions to our understanding of the stories around many national historic sites on the Great Plains. He began work in the 1950s, as a very traditional historian of US military history in the Indian Wars. Fortunately, he has changed with the times. The new preface to this book outlines some of the ways in which he has changed, though I wish he would change even more. This book treats both the US and the Indian sides with respect, though Utley never confronts the core inequity of Euro-American invasion; after all, Native Americans didn't invade Europe. While he's balanced in treating the campaigns and battles, imbalance in that big picture provides more subtle bias throughout the book.

Utley tries to cover the entire "frontier" (a term he uses advisedly), including brief mentions of Alaskan Natives but not Hawai'ians. He discusses the more exceptional cases of Indian Territory / Oklahoma, Alaska, and the Pueblos against the background of the conflict on the Great Plains. California gets minor treatment, Oregon and Washington almost none.

As you'd expect from this capsule, the book tries to cover a lot of material in less than 250 pages, with a lot of photographs. As a result, it doesn't go into much depth. It provides a good factual overview, and a good introduction to the history. Many of the chapters have some analytical paragraphs at their start and end, but this interpretive material should have been strengthened throughout the book.