The Red and the White: A Family Saga of the American West [Paperback]

At dawn on January 23, 1870, four hundred men of the Second U.S. Cavalryattacked and butchered a Piegan camp near the Marias River in Montana inone of the worst slaughters of Indians by American military forces in U.S.history. Coming to avenge the murder of their fathera former fur-trader namedMalcolm Clarke who had been killed four months earlier by their Piegan motherscousinClarke s own two sons joined the cavalry in a slaughter of many of theirown relatives. In this groundbreaking work of American history, Andrew R. Graybillplaces the Marias Massacre within a larger, three-generation saga of the Clarke family,particularly illuminating the complex history of native-white intermarriage in theAmerican Northwest.Brings to life a remarkable family that lived at the intersection of worlds, where the fur trade and intermarriage blurred the distinction between American Indians and white Americans.A touching portrait of race relations on the frontier. . . . . Evocative details and a close attention to the arc of its subjects lives lend Graybills narrative emotional heft. . . .? An entertaining and insightful exposition of an unjustly ignored facet of the American social fabric.Fascinating insights into race relations on the evolving frontier&. highly recommended for all readers interested in the 19-century West.Fascinating and often moving.Transforms a tragic, 19th-century story of heartbreak and revenge on the Rocky Mountain frontier, into a dynamic, multi-generational history. . . . . Shakespearean in its tragedy and Biblical in its parable of how the Indian tribes have endured a diaspora of such magnitude. . . . [The] Clarke family chose a purposeful, meaningful life, offering up, for all of us, a shining example of the power and strength of the human spirit.A gripping Western saga. . . .? Western history buffs and general readers alike cannot fail to profit from a careful reading of its pagesdramatic, heartbreaking.A masterful treatment of a much-nl£$