Contested Plains

Elliott West is an intriguing author and this expansive history of the Plains Indians and the Colorado gold rush is fascinating. He begins by relating the story of the peopling of the central High Plains, how the Spanish-introduced horses thrived on the grasses found there and how the Indians, especially the Cheyenne, made the horses the central aspect of their way of life. He describes next the earliest contacts with Europeans, the early fur trappers and traders along the Santa Fe and other trails. Then he reaches what will be the main thrust of his book: the discovery of gold along Cherry and Dry Creeks near today's Denver by a group of Georgian prospectors in the summer of 1858. Word of their finds reached Kansas City by late August, the rest of the eastern United States by September, and California by October (via the Isthmus of Panama). The rush was on. He tells of the three main river routes open to the gold seekers: the Platte (northern), the Arkansas (southern), and the Smoky Hill (central), the riskiest route because of a shortage of water and deadly weather storms. He explains how the Front Range prospered quickly and towns grew. And he traces how all of this activity devastated the way of life for the Indians, resulting, if not exactly ending, most disgracefully at Sand Creek. The field covered by West's book has been mined often, but rarely with the flair and style he brings to his study. The book combines scholarship and anecdotal reports magnificently, and is a pleasure to read. Highly recommended.

The Contested Plains, by one of the most imaginative Western historians writing today, is a masterpiece in the field. It puts peoples-white and Indian-together in a complicated field of action--the Plains and the Rockies in the 19th century. West shows us a world of surprising and fascinating complexity, a place of high drama undergoing sweeping transformations. West is a master storyteller. Behind the compelling and vivid narrative there are new approaches in the field of Western history, including its way of re-looking at the frontier as a zone of cultural contestation and exchange in which it is as important to take stock of the land and animals as of the peoples, their economies, and their ideas. If you are at all interested in Western history, read this book!

This is a very unique book about settlers and the plains Indians because the author gives a detailed introductory history on each as it coincides with the discovery of gold, the mass migration of miners and settlers that went west and the effects it had on the nomadic Indian's way of life. Lots of minute detail that is not exactly for a quick read but the author makes great points that the Indians existed in America thousands of years before Moses and that their life as nomads accelerated when Cortez introduced the horse to the plains Indians. The author also demonstrates that the various tribes of Cheyenne, Kiowa, Arapahoe, Comanche, Apache and others were already straining the resources of the plains, which are dramatically effected by the mass migration of whites. Even the buffalo moved further east from the front range of the Rockies where tribal rivalries gave the over hunted beasts a sanctuary in no mans land. In addition, the development of Denver through the discovery of gold is actually quite interesting as the mountain men and those married to Indian women had initial influence that promptly disappears as Denver flourishes once a higher class society emerges. The initial boosters are eventually disregarded as well as the tribal influences through family relations. Finally, the author puts it altogether noting that whites took the various oases on the plains where water, grass and trees were plentiful, removing the primary sources of comfortable survival for the Indians. What happens to the Indians has some familiarity to what is happening in rural America where developers (ranchers, the army, farmers and miners in this case) flatten large tracts of land changing not only the landscape but also the community itself but of course with more dire effects to the Indian way of life. By taking the natives' areas of shelter and food, they are eventually hard pressed to survive culminating in occasional armed conflict particularly by the dog soldiers. There was a misunderstanding or lack of appreciation by settlers that just because Indians did not occupy water and treed sites at the present, it did not mean it was not used. The Indians used many of these more productive areas as seasonal shelters for their nomadic use, which begin to be occupied exclusively by whites. In the end, resistance by some dog soldiers fuels the totally avoidable massacre at Sand Creek where peaceful Cheyenne were instructed to camp. The massacre was even a greater tragedy since responsible individuals knew and informed Chivington that village camp was peaceful with several notable whites staying with their relatives by means of marriage. As the author points out, the massacre may also have been a violent repudiation of the intermingling of the races. Sometimes there is too much detail (in the introduction that author states that his friends complain that he cannot write about a stop sign unless he gives an in-depth history of the intersection) but the final 60 pages

This is a truly outstanding work. In a microcosmic study, West has written a new synthesis of Western American history. Beginning with the the High Plains environment and the resources it provided, West begins with the story of the American Indian tribes who migrated to this area and how the Plains environment affected their society and lifestyle. Then, focusing on the Gold Rush years of 1858 and 1859, he discusses how the mineral resources of the territory attracted the hordes of white settlers to the plains, as well as the nature of the people who came here and the cultural expectations they carried with them.Finally, he discusses how the Native American and white American cultures clashed with each other and the role the environment played in that conflict. West details the power struggle that took place on the Plains and the reasons for the eventual white triumph.This book is an important work in the history of the Overland experience of the 19th century. Alongside works such as John Unruh's "The Plains Across" (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), it fills in some important pieces of the puzzle for one of the most crucial periods in the history of American nationbuilding.

Professor West's outstanding book finally brings some balance to the discussion of conflicts between Native Americans and white settlers in the 19th Century American West. Using the Colorado Gold Rush as a singularly transforming event, West has documented both camps' accomplishments and depredations in interesting and impeccable detail. His analysis of the detrimental environmental impacts of Indians and settlers alike on the High Plains' limited resources is brilliant. As a native Coloradoan, I believe that Contested Plains should be mandatory reading for all students of Colorado history. His settings, characters, conflicts and outcomes are more compelling than any fictional account of Western settlement. Contested Plains is an important reminder that Colorado's history was played out in its sparse plains and not in the mountains for which it is best known. Elliot West's book is a triumph and must reading for students of the history of the American West.