Handbook Of The American Frontier The Great Plains

A first reference that provides insights into both sides of Indian-white relations. Volume I covers events in the Southeastern Woodlands. Subsequent volumes will cover the Northeastern Woodlands, the Great Plains, and the Far West. Heard approaches h

Covering the plains from the Canadian border to Texas, this encyclopedic treatment of racial relationships between Indians and Whites over four centuries contains brief entries from the 1833 captivity of U.S. Mounted Ranger George Abbay to the activities Kiowa warrior Zotom. The vast majority of the entries are related to personalities, but significant battles and organizations are also included. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Covering the plains from the Canadian border to Texas, this encyclopedic treatment of racial relationships between Indians and Whites over four centuries contains brief entries from the 1833 captivity of U.S. Mounted Ranger George Abbay to the activities Kiowa warrior Zotom. The vast majority of the entries are related to personalities, but significant battles and organizations are also included. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The projected five volume Handbook of the American Frontier is intended as a work of first reference that provides insights into Indian-white relationships during the first four centuries of our colonial and United States history. Based upon both primary and secondary sources, it includes the Indian viewpoint as well as the white, and provides references to assist the reader to additional information. Volume IV of the Handbook is an account of men and events important in the frontier history of the West from the earliest Spanish explorations to the last Indian battle, fought in 1918. Like previous volumes, it is presented as an historical dictionary with entries relating to the experiences of Indian leaders and tribes, traders, explorers, missionaries, mountain men, military officers, and frontier settlers. Much attention is devoted to warfare, treaties, and alliances between European and Native American Nations. Tribes featured include the Apaches, Navahos, Pueblos, Utes, Paiutes, Shoshonis, Modocs, Yumas, and the proliferation of native peoples inhabiting the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Canada. The other regional volumes cover events and peoples in the Southwest Woodlands, the Northeastern Woodlands, and the Great Plains. The final volume of the set will include a general index, bibliography and chronology.

Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University This iconic description of the interaction between the vast central plains of the continent and the white Americans who moved there in the mid-nineteenth century has endured as one of the most influential, widely known, and controversial works in western history since its first publication in 1931. Arguing that "the Great Plains environment . . . constitutes a geographic unity whose influences have been so powerful as to put a characteristic mark upon everything that survives within its borders," Walter Prescott Webb identifies the revolver, barbed wire, and the windmill as technological adaptations that facilitated Anglo conquest of the arid, treeless region. Webb draws on history, anthropology, geography, demographics, climatology, and economics in arguing that the 98th Meridian constitutes an institutional fault line at which "practically every institution that was carried across it was either broken and remade or else greatly altered." This new edition of one of the foundational works of western American history features an introduction by Great Plains historian Andrew R. Graybill and a new index and updated design.

Contains hundreds of sources, both primary and secondary, and seeks to foreground the perspective of heretofore largely ignored groups such as women and blacks, and frequently misrepresented cultures of native North Americans.

The author of "The Fighting Men of the Civil War" now masterfully chronicles the grand history of the territory beyond the Mississippi, with particular attention to exploration, expansion, conflict, and settlement.