The Kiowa Verdict [Paperback]

Cynthia Haseloff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2008

Western* 1997 Spur Award WinnerWhen Kiowa war chief, Santana, boasted that he had led a war party against a wagon train of freighters, he set the stage for his arrest. The war party had robbed, tortured and mutilated members of the wagon train, and now the Kiowa chiefs were to be tried in a Texas court. The case seemed open and shut, but attorney Joe Woolfolk made it clear that the U.S. would have to prove its charge without using Santanas boastful self-incrimination.* First Edition Western

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books (Mm) (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843961325
• ISBN-13: 978-0843961324
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,609,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Captivating Page-Turner!, September 22, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Fayetteville, AR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiowa Verdict (Five Star First Edition Western) (Hardcover)

Cynthia Haseloff has captured the spirit of the American frontier in a way that kept me spellbound from beginning to end. Not only did I come away with a true sense of the era, but I also became a new fan of the Western genre, as well (at least the Haseloff Western genre). I can't wait to read her prequel to this book, "Satanta's Woman." I would highly recommend "The Kiowa Verdict" to anyone looking for a great beside-your-bed read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Filling in the blank spots of history, December 12, 2004

By 

Jack Purcell (Placitas, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiowa Verdict (Five Star First Edition Western) (Hardcover)

Cynthia Haseloff has made a grand effort in this fictionalized history account of a raid by Kiowans on a freighter train, a trial and a verdict. Because records of the events have mostly been destroyed, or were deliberately never made, Haseloff has been forced to assume a lot about what happened and why it happened. It's generally a good job.

The legalities of trying Comanches and Kiowans raiding into North Texas while residing 'out of reach' in Oklahoma weren't vague at the time. The raiders understood enough of the law to know they were immune from prosecution by Texans for depredations in Texas if they escaped to Oklahoma. In this instance, the laws were ignored. Two men responsible for a raid that resulted in the deaths of several freighters and torture of one were arrested, taken back to Texas, tried and hanged.

From a strictly practical perspective, it was probably the right method of dealing with the event, though illegal. Even though Comanche raids continued for several years after this trial, the security of refuge provided by the Oklahoma Territory was never again to be trusted. Comanches who remained at war with whites in Texas were forced to remain on the high plains and face white retribution for their acts. This eventually allowed Colonel Ranald McKenzie to destroy the entire horse-herd of the raiding bands, putting them afoot and ending their ability to conduct raids without exterminating the entire tribe.

The fate of Penateka Comanche, the Karankawa, the Lipan Apache, the Fara'on Apache, and many other tribes caught in the vicegrip of Spanish and Anglo migration into the American West and Southwest is a bloody illustration of the other alternative.

The author has done a good job of reconstructing the events, the setting, the characters and the context. I recommend it for anyone interested in that phase of Texas history.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Historical Western, November 26, 2002

By 

Paul Miller "___[_]D___" (Memphis) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kiowa Verdict (Five Star First Edition Western) (Hardcover)

Cynthia Haseloff has written a great western that very much deserves the 1998 Spur award recieved from the Western Writers of America.
The Kiowa Verdict is based on the trial of two Kiowa Indians, Satanta and Adoltay also called Big Tree, for taking part in the "The Warren Wagon Train Massacre." Satanta led about 100 Kiowas and Comanches and attacked a wagon train with only a dozen white men. This took place west of Fort Richardson, Texas, in the spring of 1871. There was little doubt who was responsible, for Satanta himself bragged to Quaker Indian agent Lawrie Tatum at Fort Sill:

"Remember this. If any other Indian comes in here saying he led the raid he will be lying, because I, Satanta, led it."

Satanta and Big Tree were the first Indians to be tried in a white man's court in Texas for crimes committed against Texans.
Historically both Satanta and Big Tree were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. Governor Edmund J. Davis commuted their sentences to life imprisonment. Later Satanta committed suicide by leaping headfirst from a second story window at the Texas State Prison in Huntsville and smashing his head on stone paving.

Adoltay, or Big Tree, a young warrior, converted to Methodism while in prison, was eventually released, was ordained as a Methodist minister, returned to the Kiowa-Comanche lands around Fort Sill and was instrumental in converting many Kiowas and Comanches to Methodism.

One of the characters in this novel, Joseph A. Woolfolk, a Confederate and Frontier Regiment veteran, was appointed by the Thirteenth District Court of the State of Texas to defend the Kiowas. The prosecutor was S. W. T. Lanham, who later became governor of Texas.

Transcripts of the trial don't exist, so what courtroom action there is - and of course the thoughts and fears of Joe Woolfolk - are entirely fictional. What is real is the fact that poor Joe Woolfolk instead of putting up a token defense, actually defended his clients in court.

To paraphrase the sometimes Western writer Mark Twain, "the reports of the death of the Western have been greatly exaggerated." The modern Western has been part of the American literary scene ever since - and arguably long before - Owen Wister introduced readers to "The Virginian" in 1902, and it shows no signs of riding into the sunset.