Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History

Mr. Jacoby's important book is a significant contribution to recent scholarship about this important event in American history. I particularly liked his placing the event in the historical perspectives of the other cultures involved: not only the Apaches themselves, but the O'odham, the Spanish background, and the Mexicans, as well as American involvement. I regard this book as definitive in many new ways.

I ordered this book after reading a review of it by Larry McMurtry in the New York Review of Books, on the theory that Mr. McMurtry would be a good guide on the subject. Professor Jacoby looks at the 1861 Camp Grant Massacre (~140 Apache killed, mostly women and children, other children captured to be sold as slaves in Sonora) from the separate viewpoints of the whites, Mexican-Americans, Tohono O'odham Indians, and the Apache themselves. The massacre is placed in a context of atrocities committed on all sides, and there is a fine history of escalating clashes between white and Indian cultures from the earliest contacts with the Spaniards. The Apache account is a bit disappointing because, as an oral culture, the source material has not been preserved. One shares the sense of outrage and betrayal, given that the Apache had placed themselves under protection of the nearby U.S. Army outpost. However, the white account is chilling, especially in the notes that quote from the bloodthirsty newspaper articles of the day advocating extermination. Lt. Col. John Baylor, a Confederate officer, decided to exterminate the adults and sell the children as slaves. Jefferson Davis countermanded the order and revoked Baylor's commission, but, in view of what the South was fighting for, one shares Baylor's bewilderment at how his solution was greeted. There is a fine glossary, but I wished there was also a pronunciation guide.

Karl Jacoby has quickly become one of the great names in history working today. Shadows at Dawn is simply one of the most innovative and brilliantly conceived books I've ever read. It's contributions to the enormous literature on the American West are certainly great, but more than helping us to understand this single episode, he has provided a model that future studies should hope to emulate. By carefully recreating the numerous perspectives of the divergent groups caught up in the notorious Camp Grant Massacre, Jacoby has provided a measure of insight that is truly rare. I don't think i have ever felt so "there" while reading a work of history. I read two or three books a week on average, but rarely does history stick with me like this one did...as I found myself pondering it's subject for days afterwords. I really can't recommend this highly enough, and am eager to hear what Dr. Jacoby is working on next. FYI: Do yourself a favor and pick up his first book: _Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation_ - it's depth hints at the approach he chose with Shadows at Dawn, and similarly provides fascinating insight into an under appreciated facet of Western History.

With this original approach to a single event, tracing its origins and aftermath through the four cultural groups involved, Karl Jacoby joins a small but growing group of younger historians of the North American borderlands who have abandoned the tired formulas of the past, looked at the past with fresh eyes, taking care not to see everything from an Anglo-American perspective, and begun an era of fresh interpretation of very difficult aspects of our common (and sometimes separated) past. To boot, he writes very well. I recommend this to anyone interested in not just the borderlands or the struggles between Indians and others, but to anyone who wants a further understanding of the history of this continent.

I am a big fan of William Manchester, Alison Weir, and David McCullough; historians whose writings, for me, engage the reader by combining depth of research with deftness of narrative. I greatly enjoyed Karl Jacoby's first book, "Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation", largely for that reason. "Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History" pivots on a sensational-but-forgotten crime. In this book, Jacoby presents four distinct, often counterpoised narratives. His aim is to give equal voice to each of the four peoples represented by participants at the book's titular event. Not just for that pin-point in time, but for the decades preceding and following it as well. I think this approach succeeds wonderfully. And it leaves me, at least, fascinated by the fluid relationships among these peoples throughout those times. Their interactions, at once conflicting and intimate, challenge many of the persistent, mainstream notions of settlers and Indians in the Wild West. There is a subtle, fifth voice in this book, however. And it makes Jacoby's work especially compelling. Alongside the Papago, the Vecino, the Americano, and the Apache; I could hear the Historian - Jacoby himself - conveying his veneration for these peoples and for the historian's calling to curate their memories.