The lives of American cowboys have been both real and mythic; hence our continuing fascination with their history and culture. In sixteen essays and an annotated bibliography, scholars explore cowboy music dress, humour, films and literature. Celebrating the cowboy way, the essays also come to grips with false images and the make-believe world that surrounds cowboy culture. Nonetheless, as these essays demonstrate, the American cowboy is destined to remain the most easily recognised of all western character types, a knight of the road who, with a large hat, tall boots and a big gun, rode into legend and into the history books.

The cowboy way

History

Carlson, Paul H.

Americas

Tempus

In 1863, the thirteen-year-old boy who would come to be called Comanche Jack was sent to the well to fetch water. Instead, he joined a wagon train bound for Santa Fe. Thus began the exploits of Simpson E. “Jack” Stilwell (1850–1903), a man generally known for slipping through Indian lines to get help for some fifty frontiersmen besieged by the Cheyenne at Beecher Island in 1868. Daring as his part in the rescue might have been, it was only one noteworthy episode of many in Comanche Jack Stilwell’s life—a life whose rollicking story is finally told here in full. In his later years, Stilwell crafted his own legend as a celebrated raconteur. Authors Clint E. Chambers (whose grandfather was Stilwell’s nephew) and Paul H. Carlson scour the available primary and secondary sources to find the unvarnished truth and remarkable facts behind the legend. In a crisp, fast-paced style, the narrative follows Stilwell from his precocious start as a teenage runaway turned teamster on the Santa Fe Trail to his later turns as lawyer, judge, U.S. marshal, hangman, and associate of Buffalo Bill Cody. Along the way, he learned Spanish, Comanche, and sign language, scouted for the U.S. Army, and became a friend of George A. Custer and an avowed, if failed, avenger of his kid brother Frank, an outlaw killed by Wyatt Earp. Unfolding against the backdrop of the Civil War, cattle drives, the Indian Wars, the Oklahoma land rush, and the rough justice of the Wild West, Comanche Jack Stilwell takes a true American character out of the shadows of history and returns to the story of the West one of its defining figures.

Comanche Jack Stilwell: Army Scout and Plainsman

Biographies & Memoirs

Chambers, Clint E.

Historical

University of Oklahoma Press

General William R. Shafter was no gallant hero. He drank, gambled, swore, got into fights with his men. They nicknamed him for the river that was one of his targets: “Pecos Bill.” He was accused of trying to start a war with Mexico and became involved in an embezzlement case. Associated with military blunders during the Spanish-American War, he has often been pictured as a fat, incompetent buffoon. But Shafter, if coarse and abrasive, was a man who got results. A winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, he served in the Army for forty years, from the Civil War to the Spanish-American War, in which he commanded all Army operations. In Texas, he commanded one of the army’s first all-black regiments. He helped restore peace at Pine Ridge after the Wounded Knee massacre, and he carried out in Cuba one of the swiftest and most successful campaigns in the history of American warfare. In this carefully researched and very readable study, Paul Carlson gives insight into the career and life of one of history’s enduring enigmas.

Pecos Bill: A Military Biography of William R. Shafter

Leaders & Notable People

Texas A&M University Press

For the Plains Indians, the period from 1750 to 1890, often referred to as the traditional period, was an evolutionary time. Horses and firearms, trade goods, shifting migration patterns, disease pandemics, and other events associated with extensive European contact led to a peak of Plains Indian influence and success in the early nineteenth century. Ironically, that same European contact ultimately led to the devolution of traditional Plains Indian society, and by 1870 most Plains Indian peoples were living on reservations. In The Plains Indians Paul H. Carlson charts the evolution and growth of the Plains Indians through this period of constant change. Carlson examines, among other aspects of these tribal groups, the horse and bison culture, the economy and material culture, trade and diplomacy, and reservation life. In its examination of cultural change, The Plains Indians relies heavily on Indian voices and stresses an Indian viewpoint. Carlson argues that the Plains Indians were neither passive recipients of these cultural changes nor helpless victims. They took what was new and adapted it to and integrated it into their own culture. Even when faced with a significantly altered life on the reservations, the Plains Indians, "without abandoning their cultural base[,] . . . adopted sedentary lifeways and shifted toward new life patterns, new sodalities, and different characteristics of community." Carlson also investigates the role of the environment in the lives of the plains tribal groups. The ecological exploitation of bison was an integral part of their society; both their material and spiritual worlds depended on bison. The Plains Indians, while not living in perfect harmony with the environment, to some extent adjusted their hunting practices, religious ceremonies, and social organization to the seasons, the bison, and other environmental factors, such as the herding requirements of their horses. The Plains Indians is a clear, well written narrative history of the Plains Indians during a vital and well known era in Indian and American history. Those interested in Indian anthropology and history will value this cohesive overview of Plains Indian society and culture.

The Plains Indians (Volume 19) (Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest)

For the Plains Indians, the period from 1750 to 1890, often referred to as the traditional period, was an evolutionary time. Horses and firearms, trade goods, shifting migration patterns, disease pandemics, and other events associated with extensive European contact led to a peak of Plains Indian influence and success in the early nineteenth century. Ironically, that same European contact ultimately led to the devolution of traditional Plains Indian society, and by 1870 most Plains Indian peoples were living on reservations. In The Plains Indians Paul H. Carlson charts the evolution and growth of the Plains Indians through this period of constant change. Carlson examines, among other aspects of these tribal groups, the horse and bison culture, the economy and material culture, trade and diplomacy, and reservation life. In its examination of cultural change, The Plains Indians relies heavily on Indian voices and stresses an Indian viewpoint. Carlson argues that the Plains Indians were neither passive recipients of these cultural changes nor helpless victims. They took what was new and adapted it to and integrated it into their own culture. Even when faced with a significantly altered life on the reservations, the Plains Indians, "without abandoning their cultural base[,] . . . adopted sedentary lifeways and shifted toward new life patterns, new sodalities, and different characteristics of community." Carlson also investigates the role of the environment in the lives of the plains tribal groups. The ecological exploitation of bison was an integral part of their society; both their material and spiritual worlds depended on bison. The Plains Indians, while not living in perfect harmony with the environment, to some extent adjusted their hunting practices, religious ceremonies, and social organization to the seasons, the bison, and other environmental factors, such as the herding requirements of their horses. The Plains Indians is a clear, well written narrative history of the Plains Indians during a vital and well known era in Indian and American history. Those interested in Indian anthropology and history will value this cohesive overview of Plains Indian society and culture.

The Plains Indians (Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest)

"Carlson writes well in a style that lends itself to an understanding of how man got to the high plains, and what he did once he arrived. Highly recommended reading." —New Mexico Historical NotebookHumans have visited the Texas High Plains, and in particular the upper Brazos River region, for nearly twelve thousand years. At the site of the Lubbock Lake Landmark in the long Yellow House Draw, they camped, hunted game, and sought shelter from harsh winter weather.In this brief, readable history, Paul H. Carlson surveys the Lubbock Lake Landmark’s long geologic past, placing emphasis on human activity in the region and showing how early peoples adapted to shifting environmental conditions and changing animal resources.Yet this book is more than a history of the Landmark. Carlson places this significant national archaeological site in broad perspective, connecting it to geology and history in the larger upper Brazos River drainage system and, by extension, the central Llano Estacado. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Carlson consulted geological records; paleontological, anthropological, and archaeological reports; astrometrical and climatological studies; and histories of the region to reach back through deep time to explore the significance of the region to life on the Texas High Plains.“From the edge of eternity . . . astronomy, geology, anthropology, and history converge, forming the High Plains. An exciting library addition, classroom guide, or reference book, Paul Carlson’s easy-reading study is an adventure for everyone who explores the unique character of the Texas High Plains.” —Eddie Guffee, former curator of the Llano Estacado Museum

Deep Time and the Texas High Plains: History and Geology (Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest)

Texas Tech University Press

"Carlson writes well in a style that lends itself to an understanding of how man got to the high plains, and what he did once he arrived. Highly recommended reading." ―New Mexico Historical Notebook Humans have visited the Texas High Plains, and in particular the upper Brazos River region, for nearly twelve thousand years. At the site of the Lubbock Lake Landmark in the long Yellow House Draw, they camped, hunted game, and sought shelter from harsh winter weather. In this brief, readable history, Paul H. Carlson surveys the Lubbock Lake Landmark’s long geologic past, placing emphasis on human activity in the region and showing how early peoples adapted to shifting environmental conditions and changing animal resources. Yet this book is more than a history of the Landmark. Carlson places this significant national archaeological site in broad perspective, connecting it to geology and history in the larger upper Brazos River drainage system and, by extension, the central Llano Estacado. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Carlson consulted geological records; paleontological, anthropological, and archaeological reports; astrometrical and climatological studies; and histories of the region to reach back through deep time to explore the significance of the region to life on the Texas High Plains. “From the edge of eternity . . . astronomy, geology, anthropology, and history converge, forming the High Plains. An exciting library addition, classroom guide, or reference book, Paul Carlson’s easy-reading study is an adventure for everyone who explores the unique character of the Texas High Plains.” ―Eddie Guffee, former curator of the Llano Estacado Museum

“Step into the Real Texas”―Amarillo Chamber of Commerce Amarillo, the Queen City of the Texas Panhandle, is known far beyond its immediate vicinity―the high tableland called the Llano Estacado. The famous highway Route 66 ran through the very heart of Amarillo. Alan Jackson, Emmylou Harris, Neil Sedaka, and James Durst each recorded a different song titled “Amarillo.” Named by True West magazine as one of the fifty most Western towns in America, this city of 176,000 people remains rooted in its Western past―yet at the same time Amarillo’s background and outlook have a distinctly Midwestern flavor. In this book, the first comprehensive history of Amarillo, Paul H. Carlson explores the city and its environs, from the first peoples who settled in the area to Amarillo’s current position as the marketing and commercial hub of a broad region. Through its economic and political strength and its deep cultural influences, Amarillo will likely continue to dominate much of the Texas Panhandle well into the twenty-first century.

Amarillo: The Story of a Western Town

Myth, Memory, and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker (Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest)

In December 1860, along a creek in northwest Texas, a group of U.S. Cavalry under Sgt. John Spangler and Texas Rangers led by Sul Ross raided a Comanche hunting camp, killed several Indians, and took three prisoners. One was the woman they would identify as Cynthia Ann Parker, taken captive from her white family as a child a quarter century before. The reports of these events had implications far and near. For Ross, they helped make a political career. For Parker, they separated her permanently and fatally from her Comanche husband and two of her children. For Texas, they became the stuff of history and legend. In reexamining the historical accounts of the Battle of Pease River, especially those claimed to be eyewitness reports, Paul H. Carlson and Tom Crum expose errors, falsifications, and mysteries that have contributed to a skewed understanding of the facts. For political and racist reasons, they argue, the massacre was labeled a battle. Firsthand testimony was fab

Crum, Tom

In December 1860, along a creek in northwest Texas, a group of U.S. Cavalry under Sgt. John Spangler and Texas Rangers led by Sul Ross raided a Comanche hunting camp, killed several Indians, and took three prisoners. One was the woman they would identify as Cynthia Ann Parker, taken captive from her white family as a child a quarter century before. The reports of these events had implications far and near. For Ross, they helped make a political career. For Parker, they separated her permanently and fatally from her Comanche husband and two of her children. For Texas, they became the stuff of history and legend. In reexamining the historical accounts of the “Battle of Pease River,” especially those claimed to be eyewitness reports, Paul H. Carlson and Tom Crum expose errors, falsifications, and mysteries that have contributed to a skewed understanding of the facts. For political and racist reasons, they argue, the massacre was labeled a battle. Firsthand testimony was fabricated; diaries were altered; the official Ranger report went missing from the state adjutant general’s office. Historians, as a result, have unwittingly used fiction as the basis for 150 years of analysis. Carlson and Crum’s careful historiographical reconsideration seeks not only to set the record straight but to deal with concepts of myth, folklore, and memory, both individual and collective. Myth, Memory, and Massacre peels away assumptions surrounding one of the most infamous episodes in Texas history, even while it adds new dimensions to the question of what constitutes reliable knowledge.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carlson, Paul H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Carlson, Paul H.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carlson, Paul H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The cowboy way

Comanche Jack Stilwell: Army Scout and Plainsman

Pecos Bill: A Military Biography of William R. Shafter

The Plains Indians (Volume 19) (Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest)

The Plains Indians (Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest)

Deep Time and the Texas High Plains: History and Geology (Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest)

Deep Time and the Texas High Plains: History and Geology (Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest)

Amarillo: The Story of a Western Town

Myth, Memory, and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker (Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest)

Myth, Memory, and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker (Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest)