Oklahoma Books

Too bad he got lost in the history pages....we need to keep his legend alive.

Having followed anthropology and sociology in college, I appreciate the intermingling of fact, ethnology, and oral tradition interwoven throughout this latest biography of Victorio. And would easily recommend this book to other readers.

That said, the book I still prefer is Dan L. Thrapp's 1974 monumental study. Here's a few thoughts why:

In many chapters of this newer book, Victorio's existence is relegated to the background, while in the forefront general, traditional Apache history and culture are recited. In doing this oft times the author seems to use words such as "may be", "may have", or "undoubtedly" in place of concrete historical fact. Since a paucity of fact admittedly exists for much of Victorio's life, any sidestep from fact could reasonably lead directly to errors resulting in misleading conclusions. With Victorio being such an atypical Apache warrior it cannot necessarily be stated, removed from known fact, just what his early life would have been like. And sadly many facts of Victorio's daily, early life just are not available.

If Victorio, for example, similar to Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota, was not the 'normal' Apache, then his entire life, as true with Crazy Horse as well, probably defied in many ways rather than conformed to the Apache cultural norm. As in the case of Loco, which the author sites, a warrior could exhibit at times deviate behavior rather than the Apache cultural norm and not only get away with it, but at times be admired or feared because of it.

As such the application of the words "may be", "may have", or "undoubtedly", simply may fall far short when attempting to link Victorio's behavior to other Apache children or warriors. We just do not know the exact details constituting the early life of Victorio, much less many details of his later life. Although the Apache have an oral tradition as examined by Eve Ball and others, that tradition much of the time does not help us on our fact finding quest.

Though I enjoy Dan L. Thrapp's scholarly works, I find no reason not to recommend this book to others. However, my reading taste runs rather to a more military approach to biography as contained in Dan L. Thrapp's works. His book on Victorio is also more voluminous in pages and maps, and offers several more photographs to bolster the text.

And though this author understandably feels her recent book the superior work, I cannot agree. While most excellent, her newer biography does not, in this reader's opinion, surpass Dan L. Thrapp's earlier, elegant time-honored work.

However, reading both of these studies on Victorio can only aid our understanding of this very remarkable person of history.

Semper Fi.

I received this book for Christmas. "Victorio"; Apache Warrior and Chief by Kathleen P. Chamberlain helped to bring out the spirit of an Apache Warrior too long forgotten in the dust of time for the more famous contemporaries such as; Cochise, and Geronimo. Victorio has always been under-played and unappreciated (much like Mangus Colorado),but who... in reality embodies the "classical" aura of the Apache warrior.

Ms. Chamberlain does a good job of interweaving the historical facts and traditional Apache lifestyles as cohesive material in bonding what little written records remain of this truly magnificiant Apache who kept both the U.S. and Mexican armies at bay for such a long time. With a few rifles, bows and arrows, and pure determination, Victorio and his band of renagades proved to be one of histories best guerilla fighitng units.

I did however, at times find the book somewhat slow and tedious in places. There were sections that became somewhat "text-bookish" in nature. However, these parts became quickly overridden each time Victorio decided to saddle up and "jump the reservation!"

So; if you enjoy history, if you like stories, and you appreciate real men (or real women), who died for a real cause....read this book!

Apache chief Victorio was a champion of his people during wars with the whites, but is much lesser known than his contemporaries Cochise and Geronimo. That's why college-level collections strong in Native American studies needs Victorio: Apache Warrior and Chief: it uses ethnographic sources to surmise Victorio's life, integrating insights into traditional Apache lifestyles and culture along the way, and revealing his life beyond the usual military records. It's an important survey of a spiritual and military leader and is a recommended top pick for any collection strong in Native history and culture.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Well researched, pleasant to read, good flow, would like to see more from this writer.

My husband and I have traveled extensively to the many ruins in Mexico and the illustrations in this book are amazing! We've seen a lot of the Maya ruins and this book had some we hadn't been to yet. If you love pre-Columbian architecture in Mesoamerica or have traveled to this part of the world, you'll love this book.

A very nice and useful book.Throughout 29 plates Tania covers from Early Classic to Postclassic,from Uaxactun to Chichen-Itzá, showing many buildings and structures.According to her time,this Proskouriakoff's masterpiece displays highly accurated B&W drawings, plenty of details and suggestive forms, bringing to light Maya history not only from the jungle, but also from the obscurity of past. As the back cover says, her work combines "the imagination of an artist and the precision of a scientist". A great book by a great mayanist.

There are currently two versions of this beautiful book available that does a marvelous job of recreating the Maya world. The one entitled "An Album of Maya Architecture"(the other version has no An in the title) is published by Dover and is unabridged and is therefore a rebulication of the original published by the Carnegie Instition of Washington D.C. in 1946. This book is a labor of love by Tatiana Proskouriakoff whose excellent illustrations will and have stood the test of time. In the acknowledgement the author gives credit to all who made this project possible as there are several unpublished drawings and notes that were put at her disposal. Having visited the great temples of the Maya in Copan(Honduras), Guatemala and the Yucatan(Mexico) I can bear testament to their magnificent presence in the jungles. Buried for years in the jungles they have only "resurfaced" recently for archeologists to study and preserve for future generations. In this book the author takes the liberty of informing us of the uses of the various temples based on her extensive knowledge and field research. Since many of the building have deteriorated with the passing centuries,Tatiana Proskouriakoff mastefully recreates the buildings as they were, based on her studies. Her lively depiction of the famous Ball Court is in stark contrast to the actual court that is desolate with only tourists and the spirits of the skillfull atheletes who once graced the courts. The black and whilte illustrations are simple yet lavish in certain details. Each section or chapter comes complete with text explaining the visual and begins with an elaborate illustration of a particular part of the site in full rich detail.This is a beautiful book that anyone who is interested in the ancient Maya should have in their library. The author also suggests other books and works to compliment the study of the complex world of the mysterious Maya.

This book although perhaps slightly out of date is an excellent way to get started in this field. Tania Proskouriokoff is one of the most influential archaeologists ever to work in the feild of Maya history. She was a great scientist and researched this book well and with great regard for the imperfections of the study of the Mayan history.

I am in this book

The book All but the Waltz is something you should read if you are interested in learning some things about Montana life from the 1880's on. You should only read this book if you have patience because it skips around a lot. The book is a lot of stories put together and don't really ever tie together. If that bothers you then you shouldn't read this book but if it doesn't then I think that you would like this book.

This fine book is a collection of essays that weave together remarkable accounts of four generations of the author's ancestors, from their settlement in central Montana in the 19th century to the latter years of the 20th. Pioneers of strong fortitude, originating in Pennsylvania, her father's family, the Hogelands, are among the first settlers along the headwaters of the Judith River.

Good years, wise management, and a faith in the rewards of hard work serve them well - until the early death of the author's grandfather, followed by a decade of severe drought and then the Great Depression. While half of the homesteaders around them go broke and move on, her family continues to scrape a living from the land, the women on her mother's side of the family supplementing their incomes with teaching in remote one-room country schools.

Reconstructing her family's story, the author brings vividly to life her father and mother, grandmothers, aunts, and her great-grandparents. She deciphers and transcribes the writings of her great-grandfather Abraham, interviews living relatives, and studies family photographs, many of which are included in her book. While the primary theme of the book is the survival of her family, she also has much to say about the role of women, focusing on the circumstances that invariably compromised their hopes and aspirations.

There is her father's mother, Grammy, who does the work of a man while providing home and shelter for a live-in hired man without benefit of clergy. There's her mother's mother, who teaches school into her seventies to support her family and pay for her husband's care in a nursing home. There's the author's aunt Imogen, who remains unmarried and also teaches school. There's the author's mother, who marries a handsome cowboy and then struggles to make a place for herself in her husband's domineering family.

Meanwhile, the men in her stories make equally interesting studies, especially her strong-willed father, Jack, who's a natural horseman and top hand; her mother's father, who cannot withstand the pressures of a lonely, hard life on the prairie; and a husband in later years, a wildcat oilman who is in complete denial that he is dying of pulmonary fibrosis.

I highly recommend this well-written, absorbing and sometimes harrowing book that renders such a vivid picture of Montana homesteaders and the extremes of rural life. Thanks to the University of Oklahoma Press for keeping it in print. Readers of this book will also like Judy Blunt's memoir of growing up on a Montana ranch, "Breaking Clean."

While I enjoyed this book - it made me aware of just how fragmented my own family history is. How I wish my ancestors had written (or kept) diaries and especially wish they had written on the backs of all those old photos to know what states, counties, cities, villages they were in at the time of the photograph and what was the event or celebration, etc. Thanks for a good read, Ms. Blew

I was glad to get the product I ordered but I did not order the second shipment of the same. Hwever you charged me fullprice to return the 2nd book. I did not think that fair, since it was your mistake for sending 2.

Angie really tells it like it was. She uncovered all of the horrable truths from the basement of the Interior. This book tells all about what they wouldn't teach in school, and the government cover-ups. I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in the truth.

I have read this book twice--one around 1990 and again a year or so ago. It's not an easy read as the text is a bit dry and pedantic. (I think her later books are easier to read.)

Debo's conclusions, based on extensive research, are at times sweeping and fleeting--at least in the sense of trying to assess how widespread or damaging a practice was.

That said, Debo's book is without peer in chronicling the theft of Indian land, coal, oil, and timber by mostly white citizens. Most despicable was the taking from the children and the very elderly--the first lacking majority and the second, literacy.

Debo frequently hits on federal vs. state rights and responsibilities. The feds were unhappy with the seemingly small amount of protection being afforded the Indians. The leaders of Oklahoma, a new state, said the state could take care of the so-called "Indian problem." And the state did. But the solution promised bore little resemblance to the solution delivered.

In part due to her documentation of these leaders and what they did, the University of Oklahoma Press refused to print the book, a job that, as best as I can recall, migrated east to Princeton University.

Angie Debo, now recognized as one of the finest historians of Native Americans, was inducted into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame in 1993 for her outstanding work, five years after her death. This recognition, however, came after a long career in which Debo initially struggled against the establishment in her efforts to bring to light the plight of Native Americans in the West, particularly with regard to the ill treatment they received from land and resource hungry settlers. And Still the Waters Run, her study of the Five Civilized Nations in Oklahoma in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, provoked controversy among her colleagues and critics, and was published not by the University of Oklahoma Press, which refused to honor its agreement to print it, but by Princeton. This tale of the machinations of whites to defraud Native Americans and the theft of Indian property, with the many difficulties it engendered, is still in print six decades later.
Simply put, And Still the Waters Run is the story of the process by which whites, in the forms of government officials and individuals hungry for land, oil and coal, dispossessed Native Americans in Oklahoma of their wealth "by the legislative enactment and court decree...and the lease, mortgage and deed of the land shark." (vii) This method, begun in the late 1880s, contrasted with former battles between the United States and the Indians, in which military might typically concluded all conflicts in the American West. Instead, Debo argues that Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Creeks lost their land, minerals, coal and oil through broken treaties, allotment and fraud.
Depo depicts the Five Tribes in Oklahoma in the late nineteenth century as being firmly established in the new territory after the trauma of the 1830s removals. The Indians were determined to resist further encroachments and contentions with whites, particularly with regard to land ownership. This was not meant to be. Debo describes a process by which whites forced treaties and congressional legislation (especially the Dawes Act of 1887) upon the various tribes in order to facilitate the expropriation of Indian lands and associated natural resources. Loss of land was accompanied by "the surrender of tribal institutions," (31) namely collective land holding and native councils. Tribal regimes, Debo contends, were liquidated to facilitate the division of land among Indians, which in turn eased the process by which whites were able to purchase it. Although she concedes that many government officials genuinely attempted to protect individual Indian allottees, "the general effect of allotment was an orgy of plunder and exploitation probably unparalled in American history." (91)
Debo goes on to detail the ineffectual government guardianship of Indian assets, and the immense graft on the part of "a horde of despoilers." (92) This period brought poverty and abject despair to Native peoples in Oklahoma, victims of swindlers and government bureaucrats alike. Some relief was realized upon Oklahoma statehood and various federal laws in the early 20th century, as well as through "a tangle of litigation." (203) Nevertheless, Debo paints a bleak picture of the rapaciousness of whites, ineptitude among civil leaders responsible for Indian protection and helplessness of overpowered Indians.
And Still the Waters Run is remarkable for the depth of its research, no less so because it was written in the 1930s by a woman without an academic position. It is well-documented with a variety of sources including government papers, personal interviews, newspapers and manuscripts. Nevertheless, despite the passion Debo felt for the injustices done to her subject tribes, her book suffers from dry prose and a plodding narrative. Debo seems to describe every rule and regulation imposed on the tribes, and describes complex litigation in such detail that readers can easily lose sight of her overall theme. Her painstaking trek through years of Indian misfortunes, while important to our understanding of western U.S. history, is unfortunately regrettably monotonous.

Abbie and Ed Morgan were adventurous and brave when they traveled to a remote Eskimo village to live among the people and serve them for two years. The actual photographs and details of their adventures are so interesting and transport the reader back to a time very different from today.
You might also enjoy a new release, another book of courage and survival that takes place in early Alaska.
When the Water Runs: Growing Up with Alaska

A particularly moving story. This book takes place about the same time as "Tisha" but in the famed Bristol Bay Region in a village called Kulukak. It was published in 1992 and available in paperback, this book should be easy to locate.

I came across Arctic Schoolteacher by accident. I had taken my kids to a summer program at a county library. While we waited for the show to begin, I browsed the shelves and came across this book. I have probably read 20-30 books this year, and Arctic Schoolteacher makes the top of my list. In it, the author tells the story of how she and her husband travelled to a remote Alaskan village in the 1930s as government employees. Abbie taught school, and Ed, her husband, oversaw the reindeer herd. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but the book is filled with the numerous joys and sorrows that Abbie experienced in her two year stay in the Last Frontier. I only wish that Abbie had mentioned more about her life before Alaska, and about how she and Ed met. I am glad that the book included an epilogue by Abbie's daughter that mentions what happened in Abbie's life after Alaska.

I ordered this book because I like reading books about teachers in various parts of the world. This book was not about teaching,but about her life in Kulukak. That part was well written, but depressing. I guess it is what life was like there. Abbie Morgan handled the depressing landscape with humor and love. I was disappointed because it was not what I was looking for, but it does not mean that it is not a good book. If you are looking for a description of 1930 Alaska, then this is your book. Morgan describes life in this town with clarity and handles lifes disappointments with grace. She was an amazing woman to have worked there.

Great resource guide for local and area gardening. Excellent color pictures make for easy identification. Canvas-like coated cover makes for easy wipe off.

The book has good photos and descriptions for each plant but it needs better zoning information. There is a chart in the front for zone hardiness by temperature, but the plant descriptions use numbers and there is no reference to the number system used. This book does claim to be for beginners. Having just moved to OK and being unfamiliar with the zones this would be very helpful.
Oklahoma Gardeners Guide by Steve Dobbs is a great book!

This book is most informative and educational for garden plants in Oklahoma. It gave me the best ideas for placement in the garden of which I knew nothing before. I think it is a must. Thanks Steve

Gave me a lot of ideas. I've only been in Ok. a few years (from Florida). I Especially liked learning which plants will do well where in Oklahoma. Good photos.

Parts of it (setting, plot) were well done. but the characters were cheap Marvel Comics cutouts. The best character is the protagonist, penniless millionaire Indian lawyer-photographer-forensics expert Hom-Astubby. The adjectives in front of his name should give you an idea why this book's fictitious folk are so preposterous and irritating. And, O yes,he drives around in a two-mpg custom-made million-dollar pimp-RV. His paleface lover, Avalanche O'Neill, is an unspeakably sexy, precocious, and utterly brilliant Olympic athlete-journalist-lawyer-scholar-dog breeder.

Give me a break. I doubt I need to mention any more of the gross absurdity plaguing this adolescent male fantasy. Perhaps all this hyperbolic rubbish is supposed to be funny. It isn't. This book was a real disappointment.

Black Silk Handkerchief: A Hom-astubby Mystery

Riveting. I could not put it down. The suspense, the character development, the extremely hate inspiring villains are all part of what makes this the best book I have read in ages. I cannot wait for another in this series.

The Black Silk Scarf is well written mystery with a great
Native American prospective. Hom-Astubby, the hero, has a great
ruminating style of figuring out his life and the situations
he gets himself into. It is exciting to read such a interesting
plot as told in a truly original voice. Hom-Astubby gives a
nice view of Choctaw's take on not only a well thought out
mystery, but on his ways of dealing with and views of the anglo
society. I cannot wait to read the second in the series,
which I hope is followed by many more by this knowledgeable author.

Just finished "Black Silk Handkerchief". Wow! What a great book.
An excellent story line with lots of little interesting tid bits that kept me glued to the pages.
The lead charactors are very like-able.
The author really knows how to turn up the heat as the book picks up speed to the point where any interuptions or distractions in my reading became very irriating.
I highly recommend this book and can't wait for volume two in the series.
Please believe me when I say that every book this author writes gets better and better, to the point where he has truly become one of my favorite authors.
This is not easy for me to say because D.L. Birchfield is my older brother and older brothers can be a little overbearing and intolerant at times. I have to say though that as older brothers go, he's not so bad.
You don't have to take my word for it if you think I might be prejudiced toward the book just because we're related.
He won the Western Writers of America "Spur Award" for his previous novel "Field of Honor", which is a funny, engrossing book in itself.
If you like a good read then get "Black Silk Handkerchief".
I think you'll like it.

This is really a question insteadof a review. I have a copy of Boots and Saddles written by Elizabeth B. Custer. The copyright is 1885, by Harper & Brothers. The first page has a note wrote on it "To my friend Richard Dec 25th 1890 then a signature of the giver M L Malis ? Would you know anything about this particular book?

This is the first of three books George Armstrong Custer's widow Elizabeth Bacon Custer (EBC hereafter) wrote about her life with the General. It begins with Custer and the 7th being assigned to North Dakota, and ends with the expedition which led to the Battle of the Little Bighorn. EBC is a good writer within the limitations of the "style" of 1880s-1890s nonfiction. One has to allow for the fact that for her, G. A. Custer was the tallest, strongest, smartest, wittiest, bravest and most omnicompetent man alive. [It's worth pointing out that she often also describes all the troopers riding with Custer as "physically perfect, absolutely splendid specimens of manhood in its prime."] Also following the style of the period, EBC almost entirely omits the names of those she writes about. But otherwise her word-portrait of the life of an officer's wife in the utter desolation of the frontier forts during the Plains Indian Wars is effective, vivid and often moving.

There are so many good stories here I don't want to spoil any by hinting at them. The most famous is EBC's account of "Old Nash," a Mexican laundress who earned several small fortunes with her expert sewing and tailoring, was much sought-after as a marriage partner despite her dark complexion and broad shoulders, and who turned out to be the best midwife around... despite....

A few of the many things that impressed me with EBC's powers of observations--- When the great chiefs and warriors of the plains came to visit Custer, she noted that they (contrary to modern stereotype) were physically almost completely undeveloped, with geek-like pipestem arms... and she understood the reason: that males among the Plains indians did essentially no physical labor whatsoever. Another fine passage involves the relationship between Custer and his favorite indian scout, the famous Bloody Knife. According to EBC Bloody Knife was relentlessly sarcastic concerning the skills and abilities of white men, and Custer in particular. When on a hunting expedition with Custer, Bloody Knife would keep up a running narrative of belitting remarks concerning Custer's unfamiliarity with and incompetence with firearms. As soon as Custer got off a good shot, Bloody Knife would fall silent and express his admiration with a brief smile, which Custer obviously treasured far more than many sentences of insincere and overdone flattery. It reminds me a bit of a comment supposedly made by Wyatt Earp about his great friend Doc Holliday: "He can always make me laugh!"

There is no gossip about Custer's notoriously poor relations with many of the other officers and men of the 7th Cavalry. EBC defends this by saying that Custer deliberately did not tell her of feuds and enemies, because he wanted her as hostess to treat all members of the 7th with equal courtesy. However, this excuse is contradicted within the book by extracts from letters written to her by Custer, which refer to feuds and enemies in ways that would have made no sense if EBC were not fully informed,

Recommended for anyone curious about the life of Cavalry officers, troopers and their families on the "rim of empire" in the 1870s.

There are so few well written and personally lived books about the people of the northern great plains, but this is one of them. Mrs. Custer gives intimate details of life in the cavalry and the Dakotas of a time now gone.
She tells of blizzards, heat, insects, dangers and people in a most readable way that draws the reader in. This is a special book that speaks to the plainsman's heart.

Althought the opinions of Custer and life with the calvary are viewed through (very) rosy glasses, Mrs. G.A. Custer is a witty and prolific writer. She also gives little-known insight into everyday happenings in life on the prairie and how women survived the journey. Particularly interesting are the dynamics of relationships between women when living literally in the middle of nowhere, surviving the harshest of climates, with few friends, the same friends, for extended times. Also interesting is the relationship between people of color and the white soldiers. Custer is an enigma, and readers should read this book but also others ("Son of the Morning Star" is the best thus far) to get a glimpse at the man. Libby Custer falls into poetic verse at times, but this can be refreshing - there are not many writings of women in these times available.

If you like case studies of people treated with alternative medicine, this is an excellent book. I was looking for something more substantive with how-to instructions.

If you are interested in Native American Medicine, you need this book on your shelf! The first-hand accounts of the work of John Little Bear will give you great insight into this ancient practice. I highly, highly recommend this book for it's depth, clarity, and poignancy.

Thank you so much for writing this book, Mr. Conley. I have just started getting back in touch with my Cherokee roots. This was a perfect starting point.

It is so heart-warming to read about a kind and loving spirit who dedicates his life to helping others. The lessons contained in the book should be learned by all. Thank you for being such a wonderful teacher and example, John Little Bear.

This book is an important addition to all know want to learn about the Cherokee and their compelling history. I also highly recommend Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears. It chronicles the author's 900 mile walk along the Trail and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

As a resident of Oklahoma, I found this book to be particularly fascinating. While we are often taught about the history of America as a nation, we are many times left with somewhat of a void as far as history of individual states are concerned. This book demonstrates excellent research skills as told by the many many primary sources. Wickett quite obviously has done his RESEARCH. While many historans today choose to rely on other historians research, Wickett has decided to sift through the abundant primary sources in order to break new ground. His information was thorough, well documented and completely enjoyable to read. My only complaint of the book is that it was not longer; I wanted to read more. Wickett's book would be an asset to the education of history students in Oklahoma as well as anyone interested in our unique history.

As a resident of Oklahoma, I found this book to be particularly fascinating. While we are often taught about the history of America as a nation, we are many times left with somewhat of a void as far as history of individual states are concerned. This book demonstrates excellent research skills as told by the many many primary sources. Wickett quite obviously has done his RESEARCH. While many historans today choose to rely on other historians research, Wickett has decided to sift through the abundant primary sources in order to break new ground. His information was thorough, well documented and completely enjoyable to read. My only complaint of the book is that it was not longer; I wanted to read more. Wickett's book would be an asset to the education of history students in Oklahoma as well as anyone interested in our unique history.

Contested Territory purports to be an examination of the interactions between whites, blacks and Native Americans in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories prior to statehood. Instead, it offers an old-fashioned, well-worn tale of white oppression and Native American and black reaction. That story might need to be told, but Wickett's attempt is a frustrating failure on many levels. First is Wickett's race-relations model. Wickett seems content to write a history that ignores much of the last three decades of scholarship on race, gender, identity, cultural formation, community building, acts of resistance, etc. (Since I am most familiar with the historiography of African American scholarship, I will use examples from that literature). Wickett shows no familiarity with the body of work produced by Joe Trotter Jr., Darlene Clark Hine, Robin D.G. Kelley, Quintard Taylor (and others of their generation) who have produced masterful, critical analyses of the lived worlds of African American men and women. Black Oklahomans, in Wickett's world, are one amorphous class, reduced for the most part to reacting to whites and, on occasion, Native Americans. Too often Wickett relies on scholarship that is thirty to forty years old. In fact, when I finished the first two chapters, I was certain that Contested Territory was the work of a venerable professor who finally had gotten around to turning 30-year-old lecture notes into a monograph. Instead, we have a scholar who unstintingly relies on the work and subtle biases of historians writing in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. He even quotes some of these works at length. Wickett also relies uncritically on the reminisces of early white settlers. He does not challenge any of these recollections of life in early Oklahoma nor consider that the memories of these settlers, most of which cast Native Americans and African Americans in a negative light and were collected by the WPA more than four decades later, might be based more in the settlers' biases than in fact. Contested Territory does offer some new information and Wickett is to be commended for his work in the archives. But the shortcomings of this work more than outweigh its value. I had considered using this as a text in a course that I teach, but I can't in good conscious require that my students purchase such a flawed work. Nor would I want to spend the time trying to erase the negative images that Contested Territory would leave with them.

I feel this book has great importance and significance in the turbulent field of race relations. While reading this book I was continually struck by the extensive amount of research this historian has completed. I found Wickett's comparison and analysis of African Americans and Native Americans in white society to be fascinating. He clearly points out that while Native Americans were being invited into white society, African Americans were being segregated and pushed to the periphery of American society. The irony of course is that Native Americans did not wish to join white society, while African Americans were more than willing to do so. I feel this book has made an important contribution in the field of race relations.