Michael Zimmer,
winner of the Western Heritage Wrangler Award, tells me he has four favourites
of his own western novels. One is WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM.
In 1858, Clay Little Bull, born a slave,
and raised by Kiowa Indians, ventures west to seek freedom; but a band of Kansas
slavers are on his heels.
An
ex-slave in the American west brought to mind ‘mountain man’ and trail blazer
JIM BECKWOURTH, who I’ve blogged about previously. http://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/author-favourites-to-keep-promise-by-bn.html
A backcloth to the story are the
historical events of ‘Bleeding Kansas.’
This is how Wikipedia sums it up:
‘Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or
the Border War was a series of violent confrontations… between
1854 and 1861 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the
legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. The conflict was
characterized by years of electoral fraud, raids, assaults and retributive
murders carried out by rival factions of anti-slavery ‘Free-Staters’ and
pro-slavery ‘Border Ruffians’ in Kansas and neighbouring Missouri.
'At the heart of the conflict was the question of
whether the Kansas Territory would allow or outlaw slavery, and thus enter
the Union as a slave state or a free state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of
1854 called for ‘popular sovereignty,’ requiring that the decision about
slavery be made by the territory's settlers (rather than outsiders) and decided
by a popular vote…
'Missouri, a slave state… was populated by a large number of
settlers with Southern sympathies and pro-slavery attitudes, many of whom tried
to influence the decision in Kansas. The conflict was fought politically as
well as between civilians, where it eventually degenerated into brutal gang
violence and paramilitary guerrilla warfare.
'The term "Bleeding
Kansas" was popularized by Horace Greeley’s ‘New York Tribune.’
(Events in ‘Bleeding Kansas') …suggested to the
American people that the sectional disputes were unlikely to reach compromise
without bloodshed, and it therefore directly presaged the American Civil War.
Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state in January 1861, but partisan
violence continued along the Kansas–Missouri border for most of the war.’
Perhaps the most notorious figure in this dispute
was outspoken abolitionist JOHN BROWN (1800-1859.)
John Brown c. 1847
John Brown led his sons and other followers in planning
the murder of settlers who spoke in favour of slavery. At a proslavery
settlement at Pottawatomie Creek on the night of May 24 1856, the group seized
five pro-slavery men from their homes and hacked them to death with
broadswords.
In August 1856, thousands of pro-slavery men formed
into armies and marched into Kansas, leading to the battle of Osawatomie. Brown
tried to defend the town of Osawatomie against 400 pro-slave guerrillas but was
forced to withdraw. The hostilities raged for another two months until Brown
departed the Kansas Territory. In all, approximately 56 people died in 'Bleeding
Kansas' by the time the violence ended in 1859.
A portrait of JOHN BROWN in 1859
In October 1859 Brown led a raid on the federal
armoury at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (although it was still Virginia at the
time.) His plan was to start a liberation movement among the slaves there. He
seized the armoury, intending to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but
the raiders were routed by a counter-attack. Within 36 hours, Brown's men had
fled or been killed or captured by local farmers, militiamen, and US Marines
led by ROBERT E. LEE. Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of
Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection, was found
guilty on all counts, and stepped onto the gallows on December 2nd
1859.
‘John Brown’s Body’ became a popular Union marching
song during the Civil War and portrayed Brown as a martyr.
Brown’s actions were depicted in the 1940
film SANTA FE TRAIL, which had RAYMOND MASSEY as Brown and RONALD REAGAN as the
world’s most unlikely GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER!
RAYMOND MASSEY as JOHN BROWN in ‘Santa Fe Trail’
Films about black men in the Old West
include THE SCALPHUNTERS
OSSIE DAVIS in 'The Scalphunters'
and BUCK & THE PREACHER.
SIDNEY POITIER and HARRY BELAFONTE in 'Buck and the Preacher'
Reviews of WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM:
‘A sweeping western adventure in the classic
tradition of Lonesome Dove’
‘Great characters, and a fine sense of
place.’
‘Zimmer always gives you a good yarn, with a rich mix of
characters and in a setting and framework that all come together for a good,
informative read.’
‘The story is fast-moving and
engaging and the characters are complex and varied enough to avoid being
stereotypes... Zimmer is right on when it comes to descriptions of the
clothing, guns and gear, and the paraphernalia and process of buffalo hunting
prior to the Civil War.’
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