Out West Books recommends unvarnished histories of the West

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends an epic counter-history, overlooked characters with Lewis and Clark, and the fate of Indigenous people.

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From the publisher: “The Westerners” is an epic counter-history of the American West told in two interwoven stories. The first reveals the captivating lives of women and men moving through the American West — Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, and Canadian and Asian immigrants — in the 19th century. The second tracks the attempts of many Americans to erase these westerners from history, through the formation of a national mythology that lionized individualism and conquest and celebrated white settlers traveling west in search of prosperity.

From Marya Johnston, owner:  Much has been written about this book already, but I just needed to throw my hat into the ring.  Though based on the lives of underrepresented women and men in the West — Sacajawea, legendary Shoshone interpreter for Lewis & Clark; Maria Gertrudis Barcelo, a gambler who became the richest woman in Santa Fe; Little Wolf, a Northern Cheyenne leader, to name a few — it is the story of Jim Beckwith/Beckwourth that captivated me.  

    Few people have had their footprints all over the West like Jim Beckwourth. Born into slavery, Jim’s life took more twists and turns than a length of barbed wire. He led a wildly varied life during which he was at times a mountain man and trapper with Jim Bridger in the Uintahs and Wyoming, a member of the Crow tribe in Montana, and a trader at Fort Vasquez and Bent’s Fort in Colorado. After spending time in California during the gold rush, he returned to Colorado to become a soldier at the head of the charge at Sand Creek. I’d seen places named for him, such as Beckwith Hall on the campus of Western Colorado University and Beckwourth Pass in the Sierras, but I had no idea they were all named for the same person.  His story is woven in and out of this book, which is filled with people whose stories it is necessary we know.

The history of the opening of the West is the history of America … and this great book exemplifies why.  Pick it up.  It’s a keeper.

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From the publisher: “This Vast Enterprise” dispels familiar mythologies and ventures beyond the well-trodden history into uncharted territory. Craig Fehrman offers a new and more accurate account of the Lewis and Clark expedition by emphasizing three ideas. 1) The early 19th century was a different and much darker time than our own. 2) While planning the expedition, Jefferson was obsessed with expanding America beyond the Louisiana Purchase. 3) The expedition’s success depended on much more than just Lewis and Clark. Not only does Fehrman shed new light on the iconic figures of Meriweather Lewis and William Clark, but he also introduces us to pivotal characters who were overlooked or underemphasized in previous books. 

From Marya Johnston, owner: Did we really need another book about Lewis & Clark? Well, it’s been 30 years since I read Stephen Ambrose’s “Undaunted Courage,” and have since disregarded it after the plagiarism kerfuffle, so it was a breath of fresh air to read this “new” history of the expedition because of its “exploration” of lesser known but very important characters who each rose to the challenge to play a role in making the expedition successful.  

The book focuses on Clark’s slave York, whom the men came to regard as a regular member of the expedition but was returned to slavery after; on John Ordway, non-commissioned New Englander in charge of keeping the men in order and whose journals detailed Native American life; on Indigenous leaders from the Mandan to the Shoshone, whose perspective has been overlooked for years but who were absolutely essential to the success of the expedition; and of course, on Sacajawea.   

    A narrative nonfiction that reads like the best adventure, this book is a history for our times and essential to your Western History collection.

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From the publisher: “Guns, Furs, and Gold” offers a riveting narrative of the American West by exploring the interactions of the Arikaras, Crows, Cheyennes, and Arapahos with each other and with Euro-American traders, explorers, and settlers from 1804, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on their voyage of discovery, to 1864, when the U.S. Army attacked both Confederate forces in the South and Native nations in the West.

From Marya Johnston, owner: Beginning shortly after the opening of the West, Morris’ story chronicles the lives of four survivors of a fight with the Arikara; Hugh Glass, of “The Revenant” and grizzly bear mauling fame; Jedediah Smith, mountain man and instrumental trailblazer in the opening of the West; Thomas Fitzpatrick, Irish fur trapper, guide to John C. Fremont, and Indian Agent in what is now Colorado; and Edward Rose, another trapper with William H. Ashley’s Rocky Mountain Fur Company, who was raised by the Crow and became a well known interpreter.  

It is through these men’s lives that we have insight into the fate of Native Americans of the time.  All of them were sympathetic to Indigenous peoples, having lived among them and assimilated, but in a complicated time their efforts to treat the Indians respectfully were often overlooked, sometimes by the men themselves. The introduction of guns and diseases and the desire for gold and furs came with terrible consequences for Native peoples.  This is not a happy book, but an important one.  

Type of Story: Review

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