Product Description

The real story of the ordeal experienced by both settlers and Indians during the Europeans' great migration west across America, from the colonies to California, has been almost completely eliminated from the histories we now read. In truth, it was a horrifying and appalling experience. Nothing like it had ever happened anywhere else in the world.

In The Wild Frontier, William M. Osborn discusses the changing settler attitude toward the Indians over several centuries, as well as Indian and settler characteristics—the Indian love of warfare, for instance (more than 400 inter-tribal wars were fought even after the threatening settlers arrived), and the settlers' irresistible desire for the land occupied by the Indians.

The atrocities described in The Wild Frontier led to the death of more than 9,000 settlers and 7,000 Indians. Most of these events were not only horrible but bizarre. Notoriously, the British use of Indians to terrorize the settlers during the American Revolution left bitter feelings, which in turn contributed to atrocious conduct on the part of the settlers. Osborn also discusses other controversial subjects, such as the treaties with the Indians, matters relating to the occupation of land, the major part disease played in the war, and the statements by both settlers and Indians each arguing for the extermination of the other. He details the disgraceful American government policy toward the Indians, which continues even today, and speculates about the uncertain future of the Indians themselves.

Thousands of eyewitness accounts are the raw material of The Wild Frontier, in which we learn that many Indians tortured and killed prisoners, and some even engaged in cannibalism; and that though numerous settlers came to the New World for religious reasons, or to escape English oppression, many others were convicted of crimes and came to avoid being hanged.

The Wild Frontier tells a story that helps us understand our history, and how as the settlers moved west, they often brutally expelled the Indians by force while themselves suffering torture and kidnapping.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1013852 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-09
• Released on: 2001-01-09
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.00" w x 6.00" l, 1.14 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Beginning with Indian attacks on Jamestown in 1622 and ending with the massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in 1890, Osborn chronicles, often in lurid detail, the battles, skirmishes, raids and massacres perpetrated by whites and Indians on each other. The familiar names are hereDLittle Big Horn, Sand Creek, Fort Mims, Wyoming ValleyDas well as now-forgotten minor actions that resulted in atrocities. Along the way, Osborn examines American attitudes toward Indians, perceptions of Indian culture (including warfare tactics, prisoner taking, religious beliefs and ideas about property) and resulting policies, and the effects of disease among Native Americans. Two appendices list in chronological order intertribal wars and deaths caused by settler and Indian atrocities. Osborn has calculated that for each of these 268 years of warfare, there occurred an average of 60 incidents per year, perhaps 16,000 incidents in total. Osborn, a retired Indiana lawyer whose Massachusetts ancestors had their house burned by members of an Indian tribe, has written this book as an attempt to understand the barbarity to which both sides resorted. He finds that hatred, revenge and cruelty all play varying roles, and he does not take the meanings of those terms for granted, offering example after example. Although not scholarly in terms of background and analysis, his stark journalistic approach will shock even those who have some knowledge of the ferocity of American frontier warfare. (Jan. 9) Forecast: Most Americans do not view the years 1622-1890 as the period of a 268-year war. After reading Osborn's book, they may. While not groundbreaking scholarship, this study could provoke heated discussion if taken by the media as a pretext for discussing America's relationship to terrorism.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Characterizing the years between 1622 and 1890 as the era of the American-Indian War, Osborn provides a balanced analysis of the vicious atrocities committed by white settlers and Native Americans during the prolonged period of westward expansion. Employing a vast multitude of long-overlooked eyewitness accounts, he manages to debunk both the traditional myth of the settlers as valorous and intrepid pioneers and the revisionist view of the Indians as noble, morally superior victims. Instead, a riveting examination of the inevitable and inherently complex clash between two competing cultures is presented. Laden with stark, unsparing descriptions of the brutalities engaged in by both sides in this protracted conflict, the detailed narrative retains an admirable objectivity, considering the controversial nature of the subject matter. A scholarly and necessarily graphic view of a grim aspect of frontier life. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"This is a deeply provocative book. It will disturb many people and anger others, and that is all to the good. Its unvarnished account of the darkest side of relations between Indians and whites tells us much that we would prefer not to know, or that we have deliberately forgotten, about the longest and most complex conflict in American history."
—Fergus M. Bordewich, author of Killing the White Man's Indian

"William Osborn's The Wild Frontier shows the dark side of our national history, a side that many people will find disturbing. Nevertheless, it is a story that must be told in order for us to achieve a better understanding of ourselves and our past."
—Charles M. Robinson III, author of The Men Who Wear the Star


From the Hardcover edition.