Sam asked for reviews of books that I have read and remembered. In 1957, at 7 years old, I was at my grandparents ranch in North Dakota, and fell into a book written by my Grandfather’s first employer, and recently reprinted. It reads like the old ‘dime novels’ – in language a 7-year-old could generally understand. A copy is available on line at https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/562549/?return=1#page=1&viewer=picture&o=info&n=0&q= It was a book that primed me for a certain success in a lifetime where a significant part of the people I worked with were American Indian. As a child, I had Taylor’s views installed – because there was no other entertainment available for a small boy on that North Dakota ranch.
It isn’t a difficult read – and the first chapter gave me an understanding of Inkpaduta – a tall, slim, near-sighted man, pockmarked with scars from surviving the smallpox. A man who lived in peace with both his white and Indian neighbors. A man who was pushed onto the warpath by the townspeople of Smithland. Later I would read of the evils of Inkpaduta during the Spirit Lake Massacre – but as I read those stories, I would remember the near-sighted chief who was sinned against, and forced from his homeland on the Little Sioux.
Page 110 gave me a different view of Custer than later books I read offered. Joe Taylor was not influenced by Libby Custer’s writings on ‘the General.’ Taylor wrote of being offered a scouting job with Custer’s 1876 campaign: “Through Reynolds influence with Custer, the writer of these sketches was tendered the position of assistant guide and Reynolds visited the Turtle Valley Ranch where I was then stopping. Holding some regard for the just rights of the Indians in the premises, and fearing a repetition of Chivington’s work at Sand Creek, or of Baker’s butchery of the small pox victims in Montana; or that of the General himself in the destruction of Black Kettle’s camp of southern Cheyennes, the flattering offer was respectfully declined.”
Taylor’s book prepared me for a reality that the history of the Indian wars showed a different story than the writings of Elizabeth Custer. He prepared me for stopping by a roadside sign in Montana pointing toward the Baker Massacre site, for meeting members of the Heavy Runner’s family in Rexford. He made me ask the questions of Sand Creek, and prepared me for watching Soldier Blue. A later read left me able to identify the remains of Lonesome Charlie Reynolds Sharps Rifle in the Garryowen museum – bent barrel and broken stock. There probably weren’t any more spare cartridges for the rifle on the Little Bighorn battlefield.
Taylor has been reprinted, and his writings are again available – and the pdf is free. His books are a series of short stories of the western frontier, many telling tales of people who never made it into the history books.
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