The two pre-eminent warriors of the Apache Wars between 1878 and 1886, Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood of the Sixth United States Cavalry and Chiricahua leader Geronimo, respected one another in peace and feared one another in war. Within two years of his posting to Arizona in 1878, Gatewood became the armys premier "Apache man" as both a commander of Apache scouts and a reservation administrator, but his equitable treatment of Indians aroused the enmity of civilian and military detractors, and the army shunned him. In the late 1870s Geronimo, a medicine man, emerged as a brilliant Chiricahua leader and fiercely resisted his people's incarceration on inhospitable federal reservations. His fight for freedom, often bloody, in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico triggered the deployment of hundreds of United States and Mexican troops and Apache Scouts to hunt him and his people. In the end, the United States Army recalled Gatewood to Apache service, ordering him into the Sierra Madre of northern Mexico to locate Geronimo and negotiate his band's surrender. Showing the depravity and desperation of the Apache wars, Louis Kraft dramatically recreates Gatewood's final mission and poignantly recalls the United States government's betrayal of the Chiricahuas, Geronimo, and Gatewood at the campaign's end.
Louis Kraft became interested in the West in the 1970s; in particular he became interested in people who didn't speak the same language but who were able to work out their differences without killing each other. To understand these people and the land they inhabited, he immersed himself in their struggle for survival. In the mid-1980s he began writing and lecturing about them. THE FINAL SHOWDOWN (Walker and Company, 1992) explores racial relations in 1867 Kansas; CUSTER AND THE CHEYENNE: GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER'S WINTER CAMPAIGN ON THE SOUTHERN PLAINS (Upton and Sons, 1995) follows Custer's 1868-1869 winter campaign on the Southern Plains wherein he negotiated with warring Indians and got them to end a war without further bloodshed (CUSTER AND THE CHEYENNE won the Jay D. Smith award for its contribution to the study of Custeriana over the years in June 2011); and GATEWOOD & GERONIMO (University of New Mexico Press, 2000) examines the relationship between the two pre-eminent warriors of the last Apache war. Not finished with Gatewood, Kraft pieced together and edited the lieutenant's aborted attempt to write about his years walking among the Apaches, and then Kraft wrote an additional 80,000 words--text and notes--to fill in the gaps in Gatewood's incomplete manuscript--LT. CHARLES GATEWOOD & HIS APACHE WARS MEMOIR (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). NED WYNKOOP AND THE LONELY ROAD FROM SAND CREEK (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011) examines the life of a man who dared to speak up for Indian rights during the 1860s, a time of expansionism and extreme racial prejudice on the expanding western frontier.
Although Kraft had written plays earlier in his career, he had shied away from the format until 2002 when his one-man historical drama on Cheyenne Indian agent Edward Wynkoop premiered in Kansas. It has since played in California, Colorado, and Oklahoma (AN EVENING WITH NED WYNKOOP has evolved into NED WYNKOOP: A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE and NED WYNKOOP: LONG ROAD TO WASHITA). Kraft's full-length play CHEYENNE BLOOD played for five weeks in Oxnard, California, in April and May 2009. CHEYENNE BLOOD, a two character play (Cheyenne Indian Agent Ned Wynkoop and Cheyenne woman Monahsetah), dealt with race, genocide, and humanity.
Kraft continues to research, write, and lecture about Custer, Gatewood, and Wynkoop, as well swashbuckling actor Errol Flynn. He is currently researching and writing a manuscript that deals with the people and events that led up to the tragic attack on a Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho village on Sand Creek in Colorado Territory on November 29, 1864 for the University of Oklahoma Press. Other projects include Flynn and his working relationship with actress Olivia de Havilland (ERROL & OLIVIA), a story that Kraft guarantees will be well researched and different from a multitude of Hollywood biographies that race to get in print and all too often have a total disregard for truth and are loaded with sensational prose that has little or no basis in fact.
To keep up to date with Kraft, the status on his projects, and upcoming events, as well as a glimpse of his personal life subscribe to his page or link up with him on Facebook (http://facebook.com/louis.kraft). Visit his website (http://louiskraft.com) to see information about his books, magazine articles, talks, and plays, as well as the Louis Kraft Collection (an archive that houses Kraft's work) at the Chavez History Library, the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although the web page is a little outdated, it will be updated soon. For an overview of Kraft's work--where he's been and where he's headed--see a recent interview by Wild West magazine (http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-author-playwright-louis-kraft.htm).
Kraft lives in North Hollywood, California, and spends all his free time with his daughter Marissa Kraft. Contact Kraft at writerkraft@roadrunner.com.
Photo credits:
- Photo1: Kraft at podium © Washita Battlefield NHS 2011
- Photo2: Kraft and daughter Marissa when Yellowstone River overflowed near Billings, MT, photo by Linda Wald June 2011
- Photos3&4: Tracking Route 66 in Arizona, photos by Glenn Williams September 5, 2011
- Photo5: With Cheyenne chief Gordon Yellowman © Washita Battlefield NHS 2011
- Photo6: Portrait of Kraft by Steve Buffington
- Photo7: With Southern Cheyenne Ivan Hankla (at left in his tipi at the Washita Battlefield NHS), December 2008 © Leroy Livesay
