"With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the encroachment...

This sweeping account traces the histories of the Native peoples of the American West from their arrival thousands of years ago to the early years of the nineteenth century. Colin G. Calloway depicts Indian country west of the Appalachians to the Pacific, with emphasis on conflict and change. Calloway's narrative includes: the first inhabitants and their early pursuit of big-game animals; the diffusion of corn and how it transformed American Indian...

In 1829, a new life in the vast uncharted region beyond the Mississippi River was a cause for celebration, and fear.

"For the greatest trapper in the country, there's no place like the Rocky Mountains. Preacher and his son Hawk are riding the High Lonesome when the clear mountain air is split by a girl's savage screams. A gang of ruthless trappers has kidnapped a Crow woman, but before they escape with her, Preacher and Hawk burst out of the tree line, guns spitting fire. They drive the trappers off, only to find that she's not Crow, but white. Caroline has been...

"In the American West, as the nation heals from the Civil War that nearly destroyed it, new battle lines are being drawn. Caleb Justin, orphaned and grieving, and his comrade Joshua Hart, a tough, worldly runaway, leave their home along the Ohio River bound for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, intent to join Sheridan's troops in their pursuit of Indian lands. But a badly healed foot injury ends Caleb's dream of joining up. While Joshua is assigned to George...

"Three times, Adam Bain and his twin sister, Eve, escape capture by attacking Indians; once by Adam and his brother, Noah, jumping off a hundred-foot-high bluff into the Llano River. But the day comes when their luck runs out, and Adam and Eve are captured by Mescalero Apaches. Because of Adam's flaming red hair, the Indians name him Rojo Pelo. Eve is named Castaño Rojizo because of her auburn hair. They are carried to the Guadalupe Mountains of...

"9 March 1876 My name is Meggie Kelly and I take up this pencil with my twin sister, Susie. We have nothing left, less than nothing. The village of our People has been destroyed. Empty of human feeling, half-dead ourselves, all that remains of us intact are hearts turned to stone. We curse the U.S. government, we curse the Army, we curse the savagery of mankind, white and Indian alike. We curse God in his heaven. Do not underestimate the power of...

"Ten years have passed since Jack Picaro lost his Ghost Rifle--the firearm he invented, the one that never missed its target. The loss of the rifle calmed the hellraiser in his soul. Instead of returning to the gambling halls and whiskey bars of St. Louis, Jack has spent the last decade as a fur trapper in Wyoming's Wild River Range, married to Sky, the daughter of an Arikara war chief, and father of two. Then, after helping rescue U.S. soldiers trapped...

"A revealing history of the West that pivots on Native peoples and the mixed families they made with European settlers. There is mixed blood at the heart of America. And at the heart of Native life for centuries there were complex households using marriage to link communities and protect people within circles of kin. These family circles took in European newcomers who followed the fur trade into Indian Country from the Great Lakes to the Columbia...

Chronicles the final decades of the American frontier from the time of the Gold Rush until after the last gasp of the Indian wars at Wounded Knee.