BOURKE, JOHN G. _On the Border with Crook_, London, 1892. Reprinted by
Long's College Book Co., Columbus, Ohio. A truly great book, on both
Apaches and Arizona frontier. Bourke had amplitude, and he knew.
BUCKELEW, F. M. _The Indian Captive_, Bandera, Texas, 1925. Homely and
realistic. OP.
CATLIN, GEORGE. _Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and
Conditions of the North American Indians, Written during Eight Years'
Travel, 1832-39_, 1841. Despite many strictures, Catlin's two volumes
remain standard. I am pleased to find Frank Roe, in _The North American
Buffalo_, standing up for him. In _Pursuit of the Horizon: A Life of
George Catlin, Painter and Recorder of the American Indian_, New York,
1948, Loyd Haberly fails in evaluating evidence but brings out the man's
career and character.
CLUM, WOODWORTH. _Apache Agent_, Boston, 1936. Worthy autobiography of a
noble understander of the Apache people. OP.
COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON. _Apache_, Dutton, New York, 1931. Noble; vivid;
semifiction.
DAVIS, BRITTON. _The Truth about Geronimo_, Yale University Press, New
Haven, 1929. Davis helped run Geronimo down.
DESHIELDS, JAMES T. _Cynthia Ann Parker_, St. Louis, 1886; reprinted
1934. Good narrative of noted woman captive. OP.
DOBIE, J. FRANK. _The Mustangs_, Little, Brown, Boston, 1952. The
opening chapters of this book distil a great deal of research by
scholars on Plains Indian acquisition of horses, riding, and raiding.
GRINNELL, GEORGE BIRD. _The Cheyenne Indians_, New Haven, 1923. This
two-volume work supersedes _The Fighting Cheyennes_, 1915. It is noble,
ample, among the most select books on Plains Indians. _Blackfoot Lodge
Tales: The Story of a Prairie People_, 1892, shows Grinnell's skill as
storyteller at its best. _Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk Tales_, 1893,
is hardly an equal but it reveals the high values of life held by
representatives of the original plainsmen. _The Story of the Indian_,
1895, is a general survey. All OP. Grinnell's knowledge and power as a
writer on Indians and animals has not been sufficiently recognized.
He combined in a rare manner scholarship, plainsmanship, and the
worldliness of publishing.
{illust. caption = George Catlin, in _North American Indians_ (1841)}
HALEY, J. EVETTS. _Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier_, San Angelo
Standard-Times, San Angelo, Texas, 1952. Mainly a history of military
activities against Comanches and other tribes, laced with homilies on
the free enterprise virtues of the conquerors.
LEE, NELSON. _Three Years among the Comanches_, 1859.
LEHMAN, HERMAN. _Nine Years with the Indians_, Bandera, Texas, 1927.
Best captive narrative of the Southwest.
LOCKWOOD, FRANK C. _The Apache Indians_, Macmillan, New York, 1938.
Factual history.
LONG LANCE, CHIEF BUFFALO CHILD. _Long Lance_, New York, 1928. OP. Long
Lance was a Blackfoot only by adoption, but his imagination incorporated
him into tribal life more powerfully than blood could have. He is said
to have been a North Carolina mixture of Negro and Croatan Indian; he
was a magnificent specimen of manhood with swart Indian complexion.
He fought in the Canadian army during World War I and thus became
acquainted with the Blackfeet. No matter what the facts of his life, he
wrote a vivid and moving autobiography of a Blackfoot Indian in whom the
spirit of the tribe and the natural life of the Plains during buffalo
days were incorporated. In 1932 in the California home of Anita Baldwin,
daughter of the spectacular "Lucky" Baldwin, he absented himself from
this harsh world by a pistol shot.
LOWIE, ROBERT H. _The Crow Indians_, New York, 1935. This scholar and
anthropologist lived with the Crow Indians to obtain intimate knowledge
and then wrote this authoritative book. OP.
MCALLISTER, J. GILBERT. "Kiowa-Apache Tales," in _The Sky Is My Tipi_,
edited by Mody C. Boatright (Texas Folklore Society Publication XXII),
Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, 1949. Wise in exposition;
true-to-humanity and delightful in narrative.
MCGILLICUDDY, JULIA B. _McGillicuddy Agent_, Stanford University Press,
California, 1941. Dr. Valentine T. McGillicuddy, Scotch in stubbornness,
honesty, efficiency, and individualism, was U.S. Indian agent to the
Sioux and knew them to the bottom. In the end he was defeated by the
army mind and the bloodsuckers known as the "Indian Ring." The elements
of nobility that distinguish the man distinguish his wife's biography of
him.
MCLAUGHLIN, JAMES. My _Friend the Indian_, 1910, 1926. OP. McLaughlin
was U.S. Indian agent and inspector for half a century. Despite
priggishness, he had genuine sympathy for the Indians; he knew the
Sioux, Nez Perces, and Cheyennes intimately, and few books on Indian
plainsmen reveal so much as his.
MARRIOTT, ALICE. _The Ten Grandmothers_, University of Oklahoma Press,
Norman, 1945. Narratives of the Kiowas--a complement to James Mooney's
_Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians_, in Seventeenth Annual Report
of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1893. Alice Marriott, author of
other books on Indians, combines ethnological science with the art of
writing.
MATHEWS, JOHN JOSEPH. _Wah'Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man's Road_,
University of Oklahoma Press, 1932. This book of essays on the character
of and certain noble characters among the Great Osages, including their
upright agent Leban J. Miles, has profound spiritual qualities.
NEIHARDT, JOHN G. _Black Elk Speaks_, New York, 1932. OP. Black Elk was
a holy man of the Ogalala Sioux. The story of his life as he told it
to understanding John G. Neihardt is more of mysteries and spiritual
matters than of mundane affairs.
RICHARDSON, R. N. _The Comanche Barrier to the South Plains_, Glendale,
California, 1933. Factual history.
RISTER, CARL C. _Border Captives_, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman,
1940.
RUXTON, GEORGE F. _Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains_,
London, 1847. Vivid on Comanche raids. See Ruxton in "Surge of Life in
the West."
SCHULTZ, J. W. _My Life as an Indian_, 1907. OP. In this
autobiographical narrative of the life of a white man with a Blackfoot
woman, facts have probably been arranged, incidents added. Whatever his
method, the author achieved a remarkable human document. It is true not
only to Indian life in general but in particular to the life of a "squaw
man" and his loved and loving mate. Among other authentic books by
Schultz is _With the Indians of the Rockies_, Houghton Mifflin, Boston,
1912.
SMITH, C. L. and J. D. _The Boy Captives_, Bandera, Texas, 1927. A kind
of classic in homeliness. OP.
VESTAL, STANLEY. _Sitting Bull_, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1932.
Excellent biography. OP.
WALLACE, ERNEST, and HOEBEL, E. ADAMSON. _The Comanches: Lords of
the South Plains_, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1952. A
wide-compassing and interesting book on a powerful and interesting
people.
WELLMAN, PAUL I. _Death on the Prairie_ (1934), _Death in the Desert_
(1935); both reprinted in _Death on Horseback_, 1947. All OP. Graphic
history, mostly in narrative, of the struggle of Plains and Apache
Indians to hold their homelands against the whites.
WILBARGER, J. W. _Indian Depredations in Texas_, 1889; reprinted by
Steck, Austin, 1936. Its stirring narratives made this a household book
among Texans of the late nineteenth century.