MADreads

Tales of the Old West

June 1st, 2009 Lesley - Central

Paulette Jiles‘ (Enemy Women) latest novel, Color of Lightning, is based on the life of a true figure in Texas history and legend.  Freed slave Britt Johnson, his family and former master leave Kentucky toward the end of the Civil War.  They move to North Texas and establish a small community at the edge of the Great Plains.

One morning in October of 1864, while Britt travels to a nearby town for supplies, a combined force of 700 Comanche and Kiowa Indians from their reservation north of the Red River travel south and attack the small village of Elm Creek, killing Britt’s oldest son and kidnapping his wife and two young children as well as another woman and child.  The Plains Indians, instructed by a U.S. government treaty to stay north of the Red River, conduct several raids throughout Texas during this time returning with their captives to a life of hardship on their desolate land in North Texas.

In a parallel story line Quaker Samuel Hammond is sent to the reservation’s Indian Agency as the representative from the Office of Indian Affairs.  His assignment is to ”improve” the lives of the Indians by giving them farming tools and other equipment to establish houses and farms on the Plains.  Samuel’s biggest battle (often a losing one) is his attempt to stop the Indian raids and the taking of captives.  The Plains Indian’s culture has included raids in neighboring lands for generations and illustrates the failure of the two cultures to understand each other.

Both Britt and Samuel struggle to understand the impact each side has on the other.  This story, one of many little known events during the settling of the West, is brought to life by an excellent storyteller and researcher of the history of north Texas.

Entry Filed under: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction