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History. Nonfiction. HTML:*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award* *A New York Times Notable Book* *Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award* This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West "is nothing short of a revelation...will leave dust and blood on your jeans" (The New York Times Book Review). Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne's exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanahâ??a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne's account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American histo… (more)
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Blanketing this story with so many human interest factors enabled S. C. Gwynne to leap from dry factual history to riveting human interest story. The book covers four decades of American history on the Great Plains in a narrative sweep that includes the arrival of the railroads, Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, the corruption rampant in the Indian Affairs Office, as well as the abduction and later life of Cynthia Ann Parker. Her story was the highlight of the book as far as I am concerned. During her captivity, she adapted to the Comanche way of life, learning the language, spending her time learning to ride, handle a bow, and do all the work that Comanche women ordinarily did including the arduous preparation of buffalo skins. When she was ârescuedâ in a daring attempt by the U. S. Army, she saw her husband, Comanche chief Peta Nocona, killed and lost her two sons in the fray. After the government reunited her with her (extended) family, she never made the adjustment back to American life and tried several times to escape and get back to the plains. She and her baby daughter became oddities that throngs of gawking people would line up to see. In the end, her life was so very sad and when her daughter died in 1864 of pneumonia, Cynthia, who had spent the intervening years pining for her lost sons, could not face life any longer. Six years later she finally succumbed to influenza, complicated by self-starvation.
âWho was she in the end? A white woman by birth, yes, but also a relic of old Comancheria, of the fading empire of high grass and fat summer moons and buffalo herds that blackened the horizon. She had seen all of that death and glory. She had been a chiefâs wife. She had lived free on the high, infinite plains as her adopted race had in the very last place in the North American continent where anyone would ever live or run free. She had died in deep pine woods where there was no horizon, where you could see nothing at all. The woods were just a prison. As far as we know, she died without the slightest comprehension of what larger forces had conspired to take her away from her old life.â (Page 193)
I really enjoyed learning a bit of history from this author, adding to the sad history of other Native American tribes. Telling it through the eyes of people who were actually there at the time really brought the narrative to life. Highly recommended.
From time to time, we
What I liked best was that over the course of 250 pages, I got used to the idea of the endless plains, the criminally brutal weather, and constant movement of people, to fight and to survive. And then in one brief sentence, not highlighted or separated, Gwynne takes it all away again:
"Within a few years, barbed wire would stretch the length and breadth of the plains" (p. 276)
It put everything in perspective, and made the decline and fall of the Comanche bands all that more inevitable, necessary, and tragic.
Extraordinarily well documented, well written and well laid out, this is a fine read.
Gwynne certainly exposes the brutal violence of all sides in the Plains warfare. There are no moral heroes here. And, while I am glad this isn't another book about First Nations peoples that reduces them to the equivalent of happy little wilderness elves, I was made slightly uncomfortable with the in-depth descriptions of Comanche torture methods as recounted by white survivors. The problem is not that these things did not occur, but that there is no balancing voice from the other side. I can't help but wonder what a survivor of the U.S. Army raids, or the Texas Ranger raids, or any of the ad hoc raids that took place might have revealed about the depth of white savagery, which I can help but suspect was equal. The problem is twofold: of course, neither the Comanches nor the other nations left written reports, on one hand; and on the other, there were virtually no survivors to spread tales even if they had. Still, what Gwynne does tell us is enough to make the reader shudder.
I'm saying only that it is virtually impossible to give a truly balanced view in light of the paucity of Native accounts. No matter how well-researched a book is -- and this is very well researched -- the writer is at the mercy of what's available.
There is also perhaps some unintended irony here, which I mention only because of how obvious I found it: If the settlers/ranchers/pioneers could not be held back by the US government from seeping into Comancheria, then the way present day Texans complain about border crossers seems risible. Even if, as Gwynne suggests, the government had no intention of stopping them, seeing their inexorable march westward as part of Manifest Destiny, it's still a huge boulder of irony.
As I said in the beginning, there is surprisingly little about the Parker family here. Their story becomes a framing device for the rest of the book, which is a mind-numbing recitation of battles, raids and atrocities on both sides, yet it is in these sections (and there are a few more scattered throughout) that I felt most engaged. Cynthia Anne is a remarkable figure and her life is tragic in many ways. Particularly poignant are the sections when Gwynne describes her grief at being 'rescued', torn from her Comanche loved ones and returned to a society she never adjusted to. Then, too, given what Gwynne does tell us in the last few pages of the book about Quanah Parker and his life on a reservation after the destruction of the Comanche nation, and the buffalo (a heart-wrenching section), I was left wanting more. Quanah lives in a large house, is unusually generous and obviously brilliant, even earning the admiration of President Teddy Roosevelt. In the final analysis, it was the human story, and not the battle-litany, which moved me.
Cynthia Ann and Quanah are perfect bookends in this brilliant, sweeping epic of the American West. It explores the origins of the Comanche people, their introduction to the horse, which transformed them into the most formidable and ruthless tribe on the Great Plains.
Gwynne also looks into the birth of Texas and the strong, tenacious people that were responsible for itâs creation. There is the Texas Rangers and the US Calvary. The heart-rending demise of the sacred buffalo and the persistent pursuit of the white population to conquer it all. The narrative is fast, informative and well-balanced and I canât recommend it high enough. Easily one of the best books Iâve read this year.
In the beginning of the book, Mr.
I don't think the understanding I gleaned from this book was the intention of Mr. Gwynne's biography and ethnography. Human nature is the underlying theme of his book. "Greed" and status are bemoaned in today's society; the disdain for money and those who have it is palpable. Well, in the world of the nomadic plains Indians, horses were their gold. Men would steal horses to amass the largest amount they could, for personal gain and affluence. (Not only would they stampede hundreds of steads during a raid, they would normally decimate the homestead, village or town in the process. Those they did not torture and kill were taken for slaves or ransom.)
The Comanche are the subject of this book, they had "race hatred" as well. As early as the 1400s, they migrated down from around the Canadian border, killing and enslaving "agrarian" tribes as they went. Comancheria, as the vast Midwest was known, was not dominated by the five Comanche nations due to passivity or their benevolence; they spent their time attempting to exterminate other tribes they deemed enemies.
The man on the cover of this book, Quanah Parker, was nearly excommunicated from the tribe after he became an orphan. Why? On page 199 Quanah is quoted from a distant interview as saying: "I at last learned that I was more cruelly treated than the other orphans on account of my white blood."
And in an almost ironic turn of events, after most of the Indians acquiesced to reside on reservations, the Civil War started. Texas, where this book documents the Comanche, was desiring to be a slave state. Many of the tribes were relocated Eastern US nations. These tribes were self-separated into Confederate, slave-holding peoples and Union non-slave owning peoples. As mentioned earlier, those not killed during raids (prior to the Reservations years) were kidnapped for slave labor.
What would be considered "war crimes" now, were regular occurrences for the plains Indians. The first-hand accounts of the torture and rapes that were perpetrated by the Indians during raids and battles are recounted tactfully in this book. And to blame the actions of the Comanche on the "white man" would be to deny them their culture. Another notion I culled from the book was that, long before the Revolutionary War and Americans had any access to land west of the Mississippi River, the Mexicans and plains Indians were killing each other. Both sides operated on the idea of providing "no quarter." Kill or be killed was the way battles were fought.
In short, S.C. Gwynne writes, "[t]he notion that the trouble with Plains Indians was entirely due to white men was spectacularly wrongheaded." [pg 224] Believe what you will about America's Manifest Destiny and how early Americans dealt with the Native Americans. This book will definitely jar some emotions and have you cheering for both sides. What it won't do is perpetrate the ideal that a serene and docile race of people were drinking tea around a tribal fire and slaughtered in an unarmed contest.
Empire of the Summer Moon is a great book and a fast read. It does a superb job of chronicling the general nomadic culture of the Comanche as well as the encounters between the first white settlers up until they were nearly wiped out. Despite how little this book skirts discussion of the lifestyle aside from the war culture, it does provide a window into the hierarchy-less Comanche people.
That story line is interesting but what is best, and most pervasive throughout the narrative, is the story of the Comanche tribe. The Comanches had successfully repelled invasive efforts by the Mexicans and, later, the Texans. Their territory, the high plains and canyons of Texas and Oklahoma, lands of tall grasses and huge Buffalo herds, seemed impenetrable, largely because of their effective war tactics. Gwynne describes this bellicose tribe with respect and compassion, but he also tells the truth about their culture. They were warriors. They were talented and wise warriors, especially on horseback, but they were also brutal and unsentimental warriors. Of course, their murderous tendencies fed their reputation among white settlers and fueled the fear and hatred that eventually culminated in the near extermination of the Comanches. The subjugation was no small achievement and, without the development of repeating firearms, would likely not have succeeded.
The book ends with a couple of chapters truly about Quanah as he demanded faithful negotiations from the U.S. government and fair compensation for the lands his people were relinquishing and, later, as he assimilated and integrated into the newly developing frontier culture. An amazing warrior, he was also an excellent negotiator and representative of the south plains tribes. He was charming and politically savvy. But in the end, he was a native American up against a juggernaut that was the white invaders and their belief in manifest destiny.
At times he repeats himself, but he is artfully reconnecting the intriguing story of Quanah, half Indian half white Comanche hero who balances both worlds in each half of his life.
recommended reading
One of the more ironic moments was when Gwynne mentioned the one group that were able to gain control of the Comanche at the fort were the Quakers. Also, one of the funnier native American names was Coyote Va****.
While the focus of the book is Quanah Parker and the Comanches, the reader will also learn much about the early history of Texas including the wars with Mexico, the development of the Texas Rangers, the rise of the cattle ranchers such as Charlie Goodnight, the destruction of the buffalo herds, the fate of settlers when attacked by Indians, the fate of men & women captives of Comanches, the many other tribes who competed with the Comanches for horses and territory and a lesson in the geography of Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado.
A fascinating, readable account of the early history of the western America.
Gwynneâs dual history of the Comanche nation and the Parker family so closely linked with them for most of the 19th Century, are two different books combined in one that separately would have been good but together is just okay. While the subtitle implies that Quanah Parker plays a larger role in the history of the Comanche, his prominence is in the closing days of the Comancheâs pre-reservation years and attempt to help his people once on the reservation by essentially calling duplicitous government efforts to take away reservation land. One of the biggest issues throughout is Gwynneâs use of civilization and barbarism in relation to the Comanche and Euro-Americans they encountered, along with related words like savage when not in the context of a quote, is haphazard at best and problematic at worst that should have been taken care of in the editing process.
Empire of the Summer Moon is a very good general history of the Comanche as well as very good family drama in a clash of cultures only if the two were separated as together they are an okay combination. While S.C. Gwynne shows the complicated interactions between Native tribes and the ever-expanding tide of Anglo-American settlement well, his terminology is questionable and distracting.
â â â ½
As this book states, itâs about the rise and fall of the Comanche Indian Tribe in the United States. But it was about so much more, it
This book personally hit me because on my motherâs side, half is from Texas â for many generations â and the other half? Native American. So it was interesting for me to see both sides to my very only family. And even more my great-great grandfather is the founder of Comanche, Oklahoma â named specifically for his passion for the tribe and their lives. So perhaps this book kept my interest even further thanks to what I feel is my very personal connection to these people.
On a non-personal level I found this to be an interesting and well-researched history. As the author points out, much of it is from first-hand accounts because the Native American tribes werenât always big on record keeping, which was fine with me â it gave it a more personal feeling. There are A LOT of battles mentioned and at times they just started sounding like the same thing over and over and over again, making me lose interest at times. And while the subtitle includes Quanah Parker in it, it seems like heâs rarely mentioned until the last part of the book, along with his famous mother â Cynthia Parker. I wish the Parker family was focused on a bit more but I feel that the author did the best he could with so little resources to go with on the subject. Overall a good, educational book on an important part of American history.
"Few historians would argue that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which a defeated Mexican republic signed on February 2, 1848, in the wake of the lopsided war, was as momentous an event in American history as the signing, seventeen years later, of the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Yet in its own way it was quite as definitive. Appomattox stitched the nation back together....But Guadalupe Hidalgo created the physical nation itself. Before the treaty the American West consisted of the old Louisiana Purchase lands that rose in ladderlike fashion from the mouth of the Mississippi, climbed the courses of the Missouri, and touched the rocky, fog-shrouded shores of the Northwest. It was a tentative, partial fulfillment of the national myth. Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico gave up its claims north of the Rio Grande, made the dream suddenly, and completely, real. It added the old Spanish lands that lay, enormous and sun-drenched, athwart the Southwest. They included the modern states of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, California, and Nevada. There was Texas, too, in a sense, though it had been subsumed in 1845. U.S. annexation of Texas was what the war with Mexico was about, and the American victory settled the question forever. In all, the United States of America acquired 1.2 million square miles of real estate, an instant 66 percent increase in its total landmass. In the terms of land gained, on a percentage basis, it was as though France had acquired Germany. Thus was the nation entirely recast. Its singularity of purpose, its raw and conquistador-like desires to possess and dominate all lands it touched and to dispossess or destroy all of its aboriginal peoples, its burgeoning will to power could now stretch, untrammeled, from sea to shining sea. It was manifest destiny made manifest."
I chose the above passage to represent the book because it speaks to everything that amazed me about the narrative of this incredible piece of nonfiction. It is beautifully and eloquently written. It takes what could be confusing and dry sets of statistics and makes them accessible and interesting. It sets the story that it tells firmly within parameters that are well defined and clearly explained. And it gives you the big picture while also delivering the smaller ones that make the story stunning and personal. It is a book worthy of your time if you are at all interested in the subject matter.
The Comanche were the most feared tribe of the North American plains, and their depredations were extreme and exceedingly cruel, but they were making a last stand trying to stem the white immigration that was pushing them slowly off their land and taking away their way of life.
The author clearly lays out both sides of this conflict and does so with a complete lack of sentimentality, he sticks to the facts and the story unfolds in a direct, understandable fashion. When the government steals from, and breaks promises made to the Indians, it is so noted. Also he makes no excuses for the cruel tortures the Indian inflict upon their captives, and at times this unflinching look is very difficult to read about.
Empire of the Summer Moon is a fantastic book, one I literally couldnât put it down. Top notch writing makes this epic narrative of how the Texas frontier was settled both an exciting and engaging read. Empire of the Summer Moon is a book that any fan of western fiction would find a great read.
Another big plus, it doesn't buy into the politically correct myth of angelic natives and demonic whites. The cruelty of the Comanches is on full display.