Bücher der Reihe The Oklahoma Western Biographies

The son of white captive Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah Parker rose from able warrior to tribal leader on the Comanche reservation. In this crisp and readable biography, William Hagan presents a well-balanced portrait of Quanah Parker, the chief, and Quanah, the man torn between two worlds.

Chronicles the life and frontier career of Don Juan de Onate, a colonizer of the old Spanish borderlands. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, in the mid-16th century, Don Juan, as a young man, led campaigns against the Chichimeca Indians, discovered mines and founded new towns.

Charles Goodnight was a pioneer of the early range cattle industry-an opinionated and profane but energetic and well-liked rancher.Goodnight's story is now re-examined by William T. Hagan in this brief, authoritative account that considers the role of ranching in general-and Goodnight in particular-in the development of the Texas Panhandle. The first major reassessment of his life in seventy years, Charles Goodnight: Father of the Texas Panhandle traces its subject's life from hardscrabble farmer to cattle baron, giving close attention to lesser-known aspects of his last thirty years.Goodnight came up in the days when much of Texas was free range and open to occupancy by any cattleman brave enough to stake a claim. Hagan shows how Goodnight learned the cattle business and became one of the most famous ranchers of the Southwest. Hagan also presents a clearer picture than ever before of Goodnight's business arrangements and investments, including the financial setbacks of his later life.As entertaining as it is informative, Hagan's account takes readers back to the Palo Duro Canyon and the Staked Plains to share insights into the cattleman's life-riding the range, fighting grass fires, driving cattle to the nearest railhead-the very stuff of cowboy legend and lore. This fascinating biography enriches our understanding of a Texas icon.

More than any other pioneer of the genre, Owen Wister turned the Western into a form of social and political critique. In this biographical-literary account of Wister's life and writings, Gary Scharnhorst shows how the West shaped Wister's career and ideas, even as he lived and worked in the East.

In this biography, Robert Carriker describes De Smet's love for the great American West and the native tribes who lived there, the Potawatomis, Flatheads, Coeur d'Alenes, Kalispels, Blackfeet, Yankton Sioux, and others to whom the Jesuit father carried Christianity. Soon the man called Black Robe became known throughout the mountains and plains as a man of peace and a friend of all Indians. Yet this book looks at De Smet as more than a mere courier of Christianity to the western tribes and an establisher of missions among the Indians. De Smet was also a fund raiser extraordinary for his order on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean as well as a writer of travel books read avidly by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. With the nearly quarter of a million nineteenth-century dollars he raised in his lifetime, and with the addition of his own family's funds, De Smet kept the Jesuits' underfunded western Indian missions alive. Deeply sensitive to criticism by his fellow Jesuits, De Smet did not always enjoy community living. He felt most at home on the frontier, where he maintained his reputation as an affable companion on the trail, whether seated in a canoe or astride a mule, until his death in 1873.

In a career in public office spanning five decades, Mark Odom Hatfield (1922-2011) never lost an election. This book tells Hatfield's story-as an Oregonian, a politician, and a man of practical vision, deep convictions, and far-reaching consequence in the civic life of the state and the nation.

Agnes Morley Cleaveland found lasting fame after publishing her memoir, No Life for a Lady, in 1941. In Open Range, Darlis Miller expands our understanding of Cleaveland's significance, showing how a young girl who was a fearless risk-taker grew up to be a prolific author and social activist.