There seemed no end to their torture ingenuity. Letting hot coals burn through a captive's abdomen was another torture technique often applied. Cutting off the toes, the fingers and genitals of Spaniards, Americans and other frontiersmen, and stuffing them into their owners' mouths was common practice. In this, we are treated to detailed accounts of Comanche torture. Too often historians will shy away from the amoral acts of an Indian tribe in order to preserve the idea of a noble savage. I do congratulate (the author of) this book for not balking at the violence inherent in the Comanche. And while that is useful and entertaining, especially in this case, it does little to advance our actual knowledge of the 'why's'. It never answers questions, but instead gives us fact after fact. It never puts forth an actual hypothesis. The Comcanche and Apache and Lakota and Sioux were far more aggressive in the West than thier Eastern counterparts due in fact to their need to hunt in order to sustain their way of life on the plains.īut this subject is never touched upon in this book. However, Americans flooded the land and used all the technology at hand to turn the l and into life-bearing plots. These lands were not fit for farming, and the plains tribes understood this. The development of the land in the West around Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming etc was one of the reasons for the Dust Bowl, and by extension, the Great Depression. They had to hunt on the plains and badlands because farming was not an option. They did not farm or keep animals for slaughter. Part of the reason that Western Indian tribes were so feared comes from their lack of domesticity.

Once they mastered the horse, they ascended quickly from Gollum-like scavengers, a group of hyenas picking up the scraps of others, into the most feared Indians in America. But this is not a new idea, as most historians would agree that the Comanche dwarfed all other horse tribes in the West in terms of accumulated wealth- an idea that, before the white man, was unknown to the Comanche. What the book does is prove that the Comanche were, without a doubt, the most powerful tribe in American history. The most bold and interesting history comes from the first half of the book, up until the introduction of the Hays Rangers. The most irritating part of the book is the history of Quanah Parker himself. This book, although a fantastic, sweeping history of the Comanche, it is not a work to be discussed as academic history. And that is because it answers no questions, asks no new questions, puts forth none of its own theories, and has no one singular hypothesis. And no matter the amount of research that goes into popular history, it hardly ever seems to merit so much praise. Much the same way I will never say 'an historian'. As a historian, I will rarely give a general or popular history more than 3 stars.

Summer moon parker