Customer Reviews

The Wild Frontier: Atrocities During the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The other reviewers did a good job synopsizing the content of this very good book. I don't want to repeat them so I will note a few things that stood out for me in an effort to not be repetitive

First of all, I found "Wild Frontiers" to be a very interesting compendium of the subject matter which is documented cases of murder in the 300 years of conflict between the Native American and the encroaching stream of immigrants seeking greener pastures.

These new arrivals had goods the Native Americans were interested in after being stuck in 5000 B.C. for 6000 years. The immigrants were able to capitalize on competitions and animosities that had existed for eons between tribes. The Native Americans never seemed to unify to a point where they could effectively stop the onslaught of expansionism. So they killed, often brutally. The settlers did too but the Native Americans culture seemed to hold torture in high regard. Lots of examples are held within. No disrespect meant for the Native Americans, the torture was simply part of the culture, good or bad. Yes I know the Settlers broke every treaty ever made, and I further know it is not fair to judge the past by the mores of today. But slowly burning someone to death over the course of 4 days or cutting someones lower intestine out and tying it to a tree while you beat them so they are made to walk around the tree while they slowly unravel their large and small intestine must have hurt. It's hard not to wince a little.

I decided to read this book after reading Eckert's most excellent "Frontiersmen". It reaffirmed some of the brutality laid out in that amazing story of the Kentucky and Ohio Frontier.

I think scholars would have a hard time debunking any of the reports from this well researched book

I gave this book 4 stars because at times the writing was choppy especially when attempting to segway (sp) into a new story.

Very informative and mostly well written book that I read quickly. I recommend this book to all interested.

"Wild Frontier" is the story of the conflicts between Indians and Whites in the United States from the first Indian/White war in Jamestown in 1622 until Wounded Knee in 1890. The author characterizes this period as a single war lasting 268 years and he describes many of the thousands of atrocities which occured during that period giving approximately equal weight to those committed by Indians and Whites. Scattered throughout his narrative are many quotes which illustrate the attitudes of the two races toward each other over the course of this long, sordid history.

The heart of the book is found in the three appendices. Appendix A lists known intertribal Indian wars; Appendix B lists the number of deaths caused by Indian atrocities and Appendix C lists the number of indian deaths caused by settlers. The author totes up about 9,000 deaths of Whites attributed to Indians and 7,000 deaths of Indians attributed to Whites.

These long lists are admirably conceived -- but by no means complete casualty lists. For example, the book lists only about 400 Whites killed by Indians during the French and Indian War. I think the total -- from what I have read -- should be much higher. Not listed are Braddock's battle in 1755 and St Clair's in 1791 in which the Indians killed hundreds of White soldiers. Also, the list is probably incomplete for the Whites killed by Apaches and Comanches in the Southwest during the 19th century. On the other side of the conflict, the murder of many, many Indians went unrecorded.

The book is balanced in that it does not minimize or excuse atrocities by either Whites or Indians. The conquest of the United States from the Indians was a long and brutal affair and this book gives you a capsule history of many of the major battles and events in the war.

Smallchief

I had a chance to read this book recently. Over the last thirty odd years, since the publication of Dee Brown's BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, it has been fashionable to depict whites as the villains of the Indian Wars. In point of fact the story is far more complex, with more twists and turns. Indian tribes were at war with one another from before the arrival of the whites and in fact were often allied with whites against other tribes during the course of the 300 odd years of conflict.

The Indian Wars were essentially guerrilla wars, and like all such wars evolved into a downward spiral of atrocity and counter-atrocity. You can see similar things happening in contemporary Latin America, where paramilitary forces battle guerrillas in Columbia. The author points out that often the hostilities were not the result of tribes or governments breaking treaties, but rather by individuals beyond the control of same. Indian "tribes" were often loosely controlled groups of culturally similar peoples. Only with the formation of various "Indian Police" on reservations, in the late 1800's was there any real control of individuals to attempt to restrain intertribal warfare, or even conflict between factions of a tribe. The knee-jerk reaction to a group raiding another tribe, or settlers, was to hold the larger "tribe" responsible, and often the resultant conflict generated atrocities by whites. One can see the same thing happening in the Middle-east, as one Palestinian group bombs a bus or nighclub, and the Israeli's retaliate on the Palestinians as a whole. It's a sad commentary on human nature.

I would consider this book "Must Reading" for anyone interested in the old West and the Indian wars. I expect some will take this book, and maybe this review, to task. For the record I am a registered Democrat. The author points out how our acceptance of false history or myth has created problems in dealing with the present state of Indian relations. I see how this goes with other areas in the history of both America and the West. The author is a retired attorney and his sources are documented. Neither whites nor Indians come out of his book smelling like a rose. There is enough stupidity to go around, but the author offers a hopeful note at the end. If some of the acts detailed were to happen in the third world, as they still do, we would probably shake our heads. The Indian Wars were part of our evolution from a third world country, not too far distant in our past, to a hopefully more enlightened present and future.

As a retired high school teacher with an interest in American history,I was attracted to Bill Osborn's THE WILD FRONTIER when I first read the title and saw its cover. Because of its emphasis on atrocities, I felt that it would appeal not only to an adult audience but also to a teenage one. I was not wrong. I found THE WILD FRONTIER well-written and absorbing. I flew through the first few chapters but found the reading personally stressful later on as more and more atrocities were reported. Of course, the cover led me to expect this, but I still found the actual accounts distressing. However, they did help me understand more fully the deep animosity between the early settlers and the Indians. Although I knew that we have not always treated the Indian honorably, Osborn's book also really opened my eyes to the white man's shameful behavior regarding the Indian during the period of the California Gold Rush and the U.S. Government's abysmal handling of Indian Affairs during the past century. Finally, I would recommend THE WILD FRONTIER to any reader interested in U.S. history as well as to any librarian interested in a good reference book suitable for teenagers or adults. I give Mr. Osborn 4 stars on his first book and look forward to reading his second.

This book details the long list of savagery that was committed in the long-running Indian War from the time of the first European settlement in North America to the closing the frontier in the late 1800's. No side emerges with completely clean hands for there is plenety of barbaric behavior to go around from Europeans burning alive Indians in a house to Mohawks slowly burning and torturing to death two teenaged female colonists. Everything (especially the demise of a colonist captured by the Shawnee) is described in grisly detail, and it is enough to destroy your faith in all humanity. There is no room here for "Dances With Wolves" or any sentiment like it.

It should be required reading for those interested in the Indian Wars.

One good thing about the 60s was that it was a transitional, and therefore more interesting, period between the traditional America that preceded it and the hypocritical and self destructive period that gave us the 90s. Nowhere is the transition more obvious than in Hollywood Westerns. Before then, the pioneers were "us" and Indians were the depersonalized "other" serving the same purpose as Germans and Japanese in war movies and monsters and aliens in science fiction. After the 60s, Hollywood got caught up in its self loathing dead end and the real Native Americans were replaced by virtuous stick figures to play against the evil blacks and whites who took their land. There is no difference beween the distortions of Tom Mix and Dances with Wolves, except that the earlier movies were better written. In the 60s, however, in movies like Ulzana's Raid and Duel at Diablo, you got a real sense that there were no good guys and bad guys - just a clash of cultures fought on a very bitter level.

Now Mr. Osborn has brought the same honesty to the academic level by cataloging the massacres that occurred throughout the nearly 300 years of wars between settlers and Indians. This is an extremely important wake up call for the majority of academic historians whose work is crippled by a primitive form of manichaeism, forever taking sides without understanding them.

The book does not take sides. It just attempts to list every crime by Native Americans against settlers, and by settlers against Native Americans. In doing so, it not only highlights the human drama of the Indian wars, but it shows how the bloodshed arose from mutual fear and distrust, rising in a vicious spiral as one atrocity created another.

There are, of course, omissions in such an attempt at comprehensiveness: the murder of the religious leader Anne Hutchinson and her family in 17th Century Connecticut, for instance, was missed. But errors always crop up and can be corrected. What is important is just how thorough this work is.

This book does what has needed to be done by presenting in stark terms the savagery of the American Indian Wars. It is gory reading much of the time, but I disagree with a previous reviewer in that I think Mr. Osborn knows exactly where he is taking his reader. His final chapters are a sound capstone to his cataloguing of the tremendous and horrendous atrocities that occurred. His theme basically deconstructs the nowadays familiar political tactic of "make whitey feel guilty". His book is a reminder that Indians committed many many horrible atrocities against innocent settlers, probably far in excess of those directly committed against the Indian. Sand Creek, the Trail of Tears, and Wounded Knee get all the attention of revisionist historians with present day agendas. These tragic incidents are dwarfed by the unspeakable atrocities endured by thousands of white settlers detailed here. This book will be disregarded by those inclined to political correctness, but as Mr. Osborn quotes of Abraham Lincoln: "History is not history unless it is the truth."

A fascinating read about some American history all of us might want to forget. Osborn with incredible insight and detail provides the best account ever written about that period. Osborn loves America enough to examine the good and the bad, I would highly recommend to anyone interested in American History.

An excellent, excellent book describing a side of the American-Indian war that is frequently hinted at but never fully explored. Thorough and well-documented. The author presents a serious account rather than sentimentalizing the facts of our nation's history.

I cannot put into words how great a book this is. Through extensive research by way of first hand accounts and reports it tells the true story of what the indian wars were about and in particular what the indians themselves were truly like...in all of their absolute hellish, horrific and barbaric brutality. The book may make your stomach turn at times but you should read it through to the end. The entire situation from both sides is examined to the greatest detail over a span of several hundred years. It's a very shocking book.