The Taos Massacres

A well-written story that follows several real-life characters through the turmoil of the rebellion that rocked northern New Mexico in 1847. Supplemented by battle diagrams from the official military history of the campaign to put down the rebellion, and a first-ever chronology of events

Battles and massacres are intimate affairs for combatants and others involved, their physical and emotional violence often stemming from fervor and fear. Although mass killing characterizes both battles and massacres, the two are profoundly different. Battles take place between armed forces; massacres are one-sided events in which the dead are mostly innocent victims. Yet the fog of war shrouds both massacres and battles in a functional amnesia. Participants remember what exactly happened during such a violent encounter only imperfectly, and later clarity cannot always rectify accounts thus rendered. Even naming the events as battles or massacres already imposes an interpretive framework upon them. This unique study centers on four critical engagements between Anglo-Americans and American Indians on the southwestern frontier: the Battle of Cieneguilla (1854), the Battle of Adobe Walls (1864), the Sand Creek Massacre (1864), and the Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857). Editors Ronald K. Wetherington and Frances Levine juxtapose historical and archaeological perspectives on each event to untangle the ambiguity and controversy that surround both historical and more contemporary accounts of each of these violent outbreaks. Both disciplines, the contributors make clear, yield surprisingly similar narratives and interpretive agreement; and the lessons learned from these nineteenth-century killing fields about wartime reporting and command failures remain relevant today. Contributions by T. Lindsay Baker, J. Brett Cruse, Will Gorenfeld, Shannon A. Novak, Lars Rodseth, Douglas D. Scott, and Joe Watkins

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Ghost Soldiers comes an eye-opening history of the American conquest of the West—"a story full of authority and color, truth and prophecy" (The New York Times Book Review). In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness. At the center of this sweeping tale is Kit Carson, the trapper, scout, and soldier whose adventures made him a legend. Sides shows us how this illiterate mountain man understood and respected the Western tribes better than any other American, yet willingly followed orders that would ultimately devastate the Navajo nation. Rich in detail and spanning more than three decades, this is an essential addition to our understanding of how the West was really won.

In 1792 a young woman called Mary B became the talk of London with her story of suffering and escape from the penal colony in Australia. This is a fictionalized account of her experiences and of Australia's founding.

J.P. Dunn wrote Massacres of the Mountains in an attempt to separate historical fact from sensational fiction and to verify the problems that plagued the Indian tribes in this country for years. He doesn't assign blame, but lets it fall where it belongs by meticulous research and the accurate, unbiased depiction of the true causes and subsequent results of some of the most famous Indian conflicts. Each chapter includes a list of authorities as well as original source documents and evidence relating to the subject. Volume 1 ISBN is 9781582182759

Grants story of Taos, New Mexico, covers some four centuries of history. She tells fascinating true stories of a settlement that was home to trappers and explorers and later to artists and writers.

The Mexican-American War of the 1840s, precipitated by border disputes and the U.S. annexation of Texas, ended with the military occupation of Mexico City by General Winfield Scott. In the subsequent treaty, the United States gained territory that would become California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. In this highly readable account, John S.D. Eisenhower provides a comprehensive survey of this frequently overlooked war.

Possibly the best single work on the Indian Wars of the American West, this account is part of the Frontier Classics Series, which resurrects long out-of-print gems of frontier history. 160 illustrations.