A skillfully spun tale of a man forgotten by history, whose story deserves to be known.
Absorbing life, set in the early republic, of a white man who sided with Native Americans—and lost.
In the early 19th century, a white boy was taken captive by Kickapoo Indians and traded among several local tribes until being adopted by an Osage family. Rather than turn against them, John Dunn Hunter became a strong advocate of Indigenous rights, writing books and articles, visiting Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, traveling to Britain and gaining the support of social reformers William Godwin and Robert Owen. He was nearly unique, historian Doolen writes, in being widely heralded rather than being met with “suspicion, fear, and loathing,” as white people who lived among Native Americans usually were. Yet his influence was limited: The uprooting of the Southeastern tribes was just one episode of the injustices done in his lifetime. It was among one of them, the Cherokees, that Hunter met with disaster; having moved southward from the Indian Territory into Texas, they sent Hunter to Mexico to appeal for a land grant, which never materialized, even though “the new republic of Mexico, badly needing loyalists on the frontier to deter the expansionist ambitions of their sister republic to the north, had made land available for settlement.” Hunter and a faction of Cherokees made common cause with white Americans who had also settled in Texas to rebel against Mexican rule, which led to betrayal and death. The author describes Hunter’s eventful life in a swiftly moving narrative that has modern implications. As he writes, those Native Americans were not extirpated, against the odds, and their descendants have been effective in legal challenges to redress wrongs done to them. Likening Hunter to the abolitionist John Brown, even though “Hunter could not easily be cast as part of America’s redemption story,” Doolen foresees the possibility of the Cherokees’ being awarded financial reparations for the loss of their Texas holdings.
A skillfully spun tale of a man forgotten by history, whose story deserves to be known.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781421453286
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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