The Hunt for Willie Boy: Indian-Hating & Popular Culture [Paperback]

James A. Sandos (Author), Larry E. Burgess (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1996

Winner of the Gustavus Myers Center Award for an Outstanding Book on Human Rights

In 1909 a sensational double killing in Southern California led to what has been called the West’s last famous manhunt. According to contemporary (white) newspapers, an Indian named Willie Boy killed his potential father-in-law in a fit of drunken lust, kidnapped his intended, and fled with her on foot across the desert. They were pursued by several posses, and when the girl slowed his flight, Willie Boy heartlessly raped and murdered her, finally killing himself after a shoot-out with a posse. This story was immortalized in the important Robert Redford film, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969).

In The Hunt for Willie Boy: Indian-Hating and Popular Culture, James A. Sandos and Larry E. Burgess correct the story of Willie Boy, a Paiute-Chemehuevi Indian, by weaving in previously unheard Indian voices to explain his motivations and actions and to present a more balanced retelling.

 

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the popular imagination, the clash of Native American nations with Europeans is seen as a series of battles and massacres, of large events. History operates on much smaller increments, as Sandos and Burgess demonstrate in their study of an incident in California in 1909. A Chemehuevi Indian, Willie Boy, killed another Chemehuevi and kidnapped his daughter, whom he later also killed. Indian-on-Indian crime did not attract much attention in those days, but white law-enforcement officials decided to make a lesson of Willie Boy, whose "violence exemplified a 'return to savagery' of a supposedly assimilated Indian." Hunted by a huge posse, Willie Boy died by his own hand. But during the manhunt, sheriffs removed dozens of Indian families from their oases "for their own protection." Those families would never return.

From Publishers Weekly

The accepted story, embellished over an 80-year period, was that Willie Boy, a Paiute-Chemehuevi Indian, killed an Indian man in 1909 in a drunken rage and abducted the victim's daughter. The pair fled on foot into the California desert, pursued by a posse. When the young woman fell behind, Willie Boy shot her. Later, he encountered a second posse; in the ensuing gunfire, he turned his last bullet on himself. In 1960, Harry Lawton wrote a novel, Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt , which was the basis for a 1969 film starring Robert Redford ( Tell Them Willie Boy Was Here ). Sandos, a history teacher at the University of the Redlands in California, and Burgess, director of the Redlands public library, search for the real event in order to contrast it with the novel and film accounts. They interviewed members of both Indian families and here tell the story of Willie Boy from an Indian perspective. This account denies that he was drunk, claims that the first killing occured during a struggle over the gun and attributes the young woman's death to one of the posse's leaders. Scholarly in tone, this is an absorbing work of ethno-historical research. Illustrations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (September 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806128437
• ISBN-13: 978-0806128436
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 0.6 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #545,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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