Empire of the Summer Moon S. C. Gwynne

In the brutality of the American West and Texas in particular, this complex story is about both the beginning and the end of the Indian wars and the chief character is, himself, half white and half Indian. 

 

The brutality of the time is startling and described in some detail.  It is my warning that reading these descriptions is quite unsettling and adult only.

The book details the history of horses and the American Indian and also the life of the prairie – the challenges of weather, the difference from what the settler was used to.  In addition, there is a complex moral story that is difficult to tell to differing cultures and the complexity makes the story even more challenging as you think of victim treatment and torture, because you must think of our own history as recent as Quantanamo.  No torture is forgivable and when torture is allowed the extremes of suffering and cruelty know no bounds.

 

The book is a history of disease, encroachment, and open plains warfare where the white invaders were lucky to have had the “germ warfare” of disease eliminate up to 75% of their adversary.  The battles and the shifts are well told and dramatic reading.

 

We learn about the Texas Rangers and how they began as well as their use of the new colt revolver which changed the history of the old west and redeemed Samuel Colt from poverty.  In fact Colt asked the ranger – Samuel Walker  - to help him redesign the pistol.  Changing from five to six bullets, the Walker Colt became the real pistol of the west.

 

Quannah Parkers mother is the center of the story for the first half of the book.  She was kidnapped by the Commanche and became a chief’s wife.  Then she was recaptured by the white settlers and treated like a freak to be put on display for the curious until she died.  She continually hoped to go back to the Commanches, but that would not be possible.

 

The story follows to Quannahs demise and does him some justice, but in fact he is a small part of the story and no matter how much research he remains an elusive figure and this only partially shows us who he was.


Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History Few people realize that the Comanche Indians were the greatest warring tribe in American history. Their 40-year battle with settlers held up the development of the new nation. Empire of the Summer Moon tells of the rise and fall of this fierce, powerful, and proud tribe, and begins in 1836 with the kidnapping of a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower blue eyes named Cynthia Ann Parker. She grew to love her captors and eventually became famous as the "White Squaw." She married a powerful Comanche chief, and their son, Quanah, became a warrior who was never defeated and whose bravery and military brilliance in the Texas panhandle made him a legend as one of the greatest of the Plains Indian chiefs. In this vivid piece of writing, S. C. Gwynne describes in sometimes brutal detail the savagery of both whites and Comanches and, despite the distance of time, demonstrates how truly shocking these events were, juxtaposed against the haunting story of an unforgettable figure of a woman caught between two worlds.