Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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The relationship between “whites” and “redskins” involved a more diverse group than even Dalugie noted. Prior to and after the Civil War many blacks and ex-slaves came west as cowboys, miners, and soldiers, as did Chinese workers, as well as Mexicans, mulattos and indios from the southern and eastern states (including those individuals who were African-Native Americans). The diversity involved members of both sexes, including females as mothers (including single, divorced, and widowed), pioneers, farmers, cowgirls and ranchers, prostitutes, housekeepers, property owners, entrepreneurs, headwomen, scouts, homesteaders, educators, and warriors. In any case, these were the antagonists that were involved in a major drama of the nineteenth century, the relocation and removal of indigenous societies in the Greater American Southwest. The book is entitled Lost Worlds of 1863 and the drama of relocation centers around that pivotal date in western history.

The inspiration for this work comes both from my activity as a docent at the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, as well as a vacation trip I took in the summer of 2012. That summer, my wife and I, accompanied by our dog Nacho, drove through Owens Valley on our way to Lake Tahoe to visit our children and grandchild. On the way I noticed a historical marker commemorating the removal of several hundred Owens Valley Paiutes to Fort Tejon. This military reservation was located across the Sierra Nevada between the Los Angeles Basin and the Central Valley. I noted to my wife that this was the same year Kit Carson and his military allies forcibly began to remove several thousand Navajos from northeastern Arizona to central New Mexico. This coincidence led me to investigate further the significance of “1863” and this book is the result of that inquiry.